


The Flesh and the Spirit

by JD_Riley



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bible Quotes, Bible Thumping, Blow Jobs, Butchered Christianity, Christianity, Colonial America, Developing Relationship, Disowning, First Kiss, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Historical, Knotting, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Male!Alpha, Male!Omega, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Verse, Omegaverse, Ostracism, Puritanism, Religion, Slow Burn, Smut, a/b/o dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-05-01 19:46:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 65,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19184413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JD_Riley/pseuds/JD_Riley
Summary: Raised in the religion-steeped countryside of colonial New England, Aymes Morehill has been taught all his life that deviation from the norm would cause undesirable effects.  He goes to church twice a week, pays his tithes diligently like he should, and keeps his hands hard at work at all times to keep from becoming idle.  A shining example of morality, Aymes has never once doubted his devotion...so when he suddenly falls into a fever one Sunday morning in a community superstitious and paranoid of change, he finds himself banished and confused, wandering the countryside and searching for answers.  That is, until he's stumbled upon by a handsome Alpha--the first he's ever met.





	1. Chapter 1

> 14 Be not unequally yoked with the infidels; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? 15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the believer with the infidel? 16 And what agreement hath the Temple of God with idols? For ye are the Temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell among them, and walk there; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17 Wherefore come out from among them, and separate yourselves, saith the Lord, and touch none unclean thing, and I will receive you. 18 And I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord almighty.
> 
> **\- 2 Corinthians, 6:14-18 _Geneva Bible_**

 

* * *

 

**Circa 1600s New England**

The voice was soft and male, echoing the sentiment that had been heard too many times before. “He's a handsome boy, Mrs. Morehill. He'd be a good husband if he sought out a wife.” Aymes always heard it from around the corner where he sat inevitably with his hands on a book, writing up liturgies that the Reverend might find acceptable. Aymes was quite well-read in this way and very often was given the task of creating sermons that should fit well into that week's events around the village. He was decidedly uninterested in finding a wife as yet and his mother, knowing his wishes, merely hemmed and hawed and thanked the fathers of the daughters who looked at Aymes and thought he might represent _good stock._

Of course he was good stock, he thought sourly. Decent, at the very least. He wasn't so proud as to say he was _the best_ of them. He was far too lean for that and a little too short, but he was comely for certain though he should never say so aloud. As small as the village was, there were few girls he found interesting and even fewer he should wish to marry. In fact, he was hoping that perhaps he might simply skip that whole dramatic business and keep himself to the Church. Though, he thought with a frown, Reverend Shelton was married—he supposed he aught to make up his mind. If he didn't pick a wife soon, who knew what they might say.

Refocusing, he dipped his quill back into the ink, blotted it, and then took to taking more notes for the liturgy. He tried to ignore his mother huffing behind him as she worried over him—twenty and yet still not married. She sat huffily and began darning his father's socks, her constant fidgeting grating to his nerves.

“Mother, if you can't stand to be silent, I would that you should tell me what's upset you. Is it that Mr. Huxley wishes me for his daughter?”

Her voice was soft and yet still she found a way to make it so that it hit him square in the chest. “You're a man now, Aymes. You've got to pick a wife. John and Hope have both married already and it's your _turn._ The rest of them will marry in their turn as well. How shall I answer for you when I am asked of the _propagation_ of our community?”

“Propagation? I can't tell if you're speaking in jest or being crude.”

She sniffed, affronted. “Really, Aymes. You've a responsibility. If you wish to be a Reverend that is all well and good but you must serve the community in other ways.”

“There is no path higher than God's,” he informed her quietly. “If I'm to one day marry, then He shall show me whom I should choose.”

She gave a small 'hmmm' to that, choosing not to argue him as she continued on with her work.

When he was finished with the liturgy, he blew on it gently to help the ink to dry and when he was certain that it was, he tucked the parchment between the pages of his worn, leather-bound Bible, and got up from the tiny wooden desk, intent on delivering it to the Reverend that afternoon. Upon stepping outside, he was overly warm in the sun but dared not remove his outer layer for propriety's sake and chose to walk down the road to the center of town where the church stood—the steeple the highest point in the village. As he walked, he noted that Mr. Utley was speaking with Mr. Whittle, an outsider to their village who came when he was sent for to sell horses that he raised on a ranch a few miles to the south.

“Good morning, young Mr. Morehill,” Mr. Utley said, tipping his hat while he sat on his wagon filled with summer corn as the severe-looking Mr. Whittle stared at the boy without speaking. “It's a surprise to see you out and about. You're usually hard at work on sermons, aren't ye?”

“I've only just come to deliver some scribbles,” he smiled warmly, nodding to both men though feeling only the smallest bit unnerved by the outsider's gaze.

“Well someone's got to, I suppose. You'll be around to collect the tithes then tomorrow?”

Aymes gave a curt nod. “Yessir. That's my duty.”

“So it is. Have a good day, Mr. Morehill. I'll see you tomorrow.”

He gave a small bow and let himself into the Church, the cool air inside the stone building relieving him a bit from the heat of midsummer. Aymes made certain to keep his back straight and his heels from dragging as he walked between the pews and ducked behind the pulpit where a small door led to a narrow hall that spilled out into a tiny office where the Reverend did most of his work. His arrival was marked by the hollow sound of his shoes on the hardwood and the Reverend turned in his chair.

“Ah. Aymes. You've the liturgy.”

“Yes, Reverend.”

“Good boy. You've done well. I will read it over before the morrow.” He smiled. His eyes held kindness in them. “You've truly taken to the work, I see. I'm beginning to feel my age these days, Morehill. Perhaps it's time I taught you more of what I do here.”

His heart squeezed in his chest with a giddy happiness he sought to quash. It wouldn't do to be overly happy. It was a matter of severity, always, to be a part of the Lord's work. He kept his voice calm even as he could scent his own giddiness. “That would be very much acceptable to me, Reverend. I would like that.”

“I know you would. You've the heart for it. It is difficult to find a boy with so little vice as you have. You do not drink, you do not smoke—even in moderation. Though there are expectations, you realize.” He raised a brow to Aymes. “I know you've been focused hard on your work, son, but once you've found what you're looking for, it will be time for you to choose a wife.”

Aymes felt his heart squeeze again though this time with a far different emotion. “I understand, Reverend.”

The man took Aymes's hands. “Tell me, Aymes. What has stopped you?”

He was quiet, his eyes focused on the man's large warm hands over his, holding them gently and keeping him there in that small musty little room that glowed with yellow candlelight and smelled of tea and old wood and stone. “I don't know.”

“Surely you do.”

He took in a small, frustrated breath and sighed it out. “I've...I've always thought that it should become obvious to me in some way.”

Reverend Shelton shook his hands before releasing them. “Perhaps it will.” He turned around again to peer over the parchment. “I will see you tomorrow, Aymes. After the service, please stay with me. Your duties will expand and I am keen to begin with lessons.”

“Yes, Reverend.” He left then, squinting in the sun as it beat down from the clear blue sky. He strolled toward the small shop that was owned by the other Mr. Utley—that is, Mr. Utley's brother—and wandered in, glad again to be out of the sun. He was beginning to feel his forehead becoming damp and he wiped at it with his hand, hoping his hair wasn't going to become too out of sorts because of it.

“Ah. Aymes. I suppose you're here for the amount I owe to your father?”

“It is not a matter of grave importance, sir.”

“Nonsense,” he replied, reaching below the counter to bring out a bit of coin which he handed to Aymes readily. “Your father is an honorable man and I thank him very much for having come to my aid. You come by again if you need anything.”

He gave a small nod. “Of course, Mr. Utley.” Upon turning around, Aymes nearly jumped out of his skin as the three Utley sisters, ranging in age from sixteen to nineteen, were practically on top of him. “E-Excuse me,” he mumbled as he gave a small bow to them and sidled his way toward the door. He shouldn't be nervous, he thought to himself as he tried to walk quickly down the dusty street back home so that he could help his mother with her wash. He should have been quite happy to have found himself sought after though he could not seem to pull himself into the idea that he should have any sort of _attraction_ to a wife. Though, he conceded, that was not often the point of a marriage.

Children were most often the point of a marriage and of course the _propagation_ of this particular way of life that seemed so important. Aymes recognized that the world outside this village was vastly different—filled with vice and bizarre oddities of behavior that should stun him with their depravity. There had been some, he'd been told, in the past who had been overcome by their inner desires. They had failed to keep God in their hearts as they should have and as a result, they were struck by _fever._ It was the youthful who most often were afflicted, the Reverend had warned. If they could not keep their emotions and their morals in check, certainly they would become beasts through this terrible fever—raging and gnashing teeth with blind rage and lust. Of course, Aymes had never seen anything like that happen though he was certain it had in the past—from how the older men spoke of it in hushed tones as though it had occurred once or twice in their lifetimes...it was enough to make any boy who'd woken up with his genitals stiff nervous over his internal impulses.

To worry about such a thing was silly and yet still, he had maintained such a tight rein over his desires that now, he could not possibly even imagine holding any sort of lust for any of the village girls. How could one bear to initiate intercourse if not for at least the smallest amount of lust? He'd often puzzled over the conundrum and did so again this day when he took off his jacket and worked to churn for butter, feeling his sweat begin to bead in the small of his back.

“Aymes?” his mother asked of him.

“Yes, Mama?”

“They've passed judgment upon Mr. Cutter...”

Ah, he thought. Mr. Cutter. Found having stolen one of Mr. Utley's calves right out from under the heifer. Two calves were meant to be born, one to Cutter's and one to Utley's. Cutter's had been born a mere hour before Utley's and had been produced lame. He sought, of course, to switch the two babies and hope that none would be the wiser, forgetting all alone that Utley's cows were known for their particular white sock on a very specific front leg that _never failed to appear._ It sounded odd to nearly anyone who was present but when shown the evidence of that specific family of cows, each with the very same sable coat and snowy sock, it was quite damning.

Aymes paused in his churning. “They've found him quite guilty, I assume.”

“Yes...they have. He'll be whipped come evenin' by the magistrates.”

“So soon?”

“The morrow is Sunday. Will they have him wait in the stocks?”

The clear answer to that was 'no' so Aymes didn't say more about it. His lips tightened. “I suppose we must go.”

“O'course we must. 'Tis duty.”

“Of course, mother. It is only that I must show Henley how to fix the wretched tear she put in her dress.” He sighed. “I should not fret so about a simple tear when there is far more to fret about this evening.”

His mother nodded gravely. “Yes. A man to gain his right punishment and our duty to bear witness.”

His father's voice came from the doorway and Aymes immediately straightened at the sound. “It is only fair for what he's done to Samson.”

Aymes murmured softly his flat reply from scripture. “My son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord, or loathe His reproof; for whom the Lord loves, He reproves; even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.”

He didn't look at either of them. There were some, plenty even, who took a strange joy in watching their neighbors find themselves in the stockades or branded with the letter of their crimes. Miss Hathawal was likely forever to remain unmarried for the “B” that had been branded to the back of her hand and his former schoolmate, Nathan Brickle would likely never live down how he had been forced to stand upon a block a sign hung round his neck for his audacity to interrupt Reverend Shelton during a particularly long-winded sermon. The both of them had seen their neighbors either fearful to speak with them or even joyful at their social ostracism—the righteous as self-righteous, Aymes thought, his feelings neither one way nor the other.

Around sundown, they were gathered around the pillory where Cutter had been placed in a set of wooden stocks to keep him from flailing about while he knelt to receive his blows. Aymes set himself upon the edge of the well which was covered with its circular wooden top and was joined by another of his former schoolmates, William Goodfellow, who offered him an apple that was likely filched from a tree off the road on the way into town.

“Do you want to get _yourself_ whipped and shamed?” Aymes asked him in a low tone.

“If they've the stones to flog me for one piece of fruit, I'll accept it but only if I'm able to eat the thing.” He grinned and again offered it.

“No. I'll not be your accomplice.”

“Bah.” He took a bite of it and crunched it merrily as the first of the strikes made contact, the knotted rope making a sick sound as it came down over Cutter's back. “How do they do this, Morehill? How does one wield the sword of God? How does one remove oneself from the act of punishment such as this in order to retain his sleep at night?”

Aymes lifted his gaze to the magistrate who was laying each level hit over the man's body. “Duty.”

“You're a man with sanity,” Goodfellow argued, leaning back on one arm. “You cannot always believe that everything is earthly duty. After all, does not the Bible tell us that it is not for us to judge? Of course I only come to you with those questions. About the time they find that the schoolmaster has been questioning the law and order in this place, they'll have me hanged for blasphemy. But if _you're_ to be Reverend one day, perhaps you'll forgive me for my hideous transgressions for your love of me.”

“It is true,” Aymes breathed, “that to question law is very much to question God.”

“Forgive me, Morehill, but you must know that to me, that sounds perfectly barbaric.”

“And yet what is the purpose of God if not for law?” he asked. “It is what keep us moral.”

“Does it?” He tossed the core of his apple into an out-of-the-way bush and fell silent then, sitting beside Aymes until Cutter had finished his silent weeping and the last of the lashes had befallen him. The sun was set when they both slid from their perch and Goodfellow spoke to him again. “Well. Another day is tomorrow. If I wake, I'll assume I was forgiven for all my sins today.”

Aymes scoffed. “Is that the ultimatum you give? Kill me or I shall sin again?”

“What other ultimatum does one set before the Almighty?” His grin returned, flashing once before he turned about and made his way home.

As Aymes sought to do the same, his gaze was caught through the dim light from the rising moon and the yellow glow from several candles and torches that had been brought by the quiet crowd. Surprised, though not overly-so, he found Mr. Whittle standing not far off in the darkness supplied by a towering old Oak set a fair ways away from the pillory. He observed the goings on with glittering eyes that reflected the luminescence of those candles and when that severe expression found Aymes where he stood staring, the boy felt as though he had swallowed a hot coal, turning quickly away toward home.

What it was about an outsider here, he wasn't certain. Their community was meant to be an example for the rest of the world—to see how one was meant to live and to govern and to worship. But here they were and they had the same problems among them as anyone else. Lying. Deceit. They had even once in Aymes's lifetime had the scandal of an adultress! He huffed just thinking about it as he shoved his hands in his pockets. How was it that he so easily felt judged by the presence of someone who had not worshiped among them? In his small room with one candle lit, he stripped and donned his night clothes, kneeling on his pillow at the edge of his bed like he had often done as a boy.

“ _Gracious Lord, help me to keep my mind from such childish notions. Justice is duty. To wield the sword is duty. To bear witness is duty. Please keep my mind from the baseless assumptions I should make of Mr. Whittle's meaningless deductions of my character...of our character._ ”

He sat with his hands folded together against his mouth for a short time, unable to think of anything else he was to find himself willing to ask for. When he was finally satisfied that he couldn't, he climbed into his bed and pulled the sheets and quilts to his chin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally published on an outside site, this is the first of several which might make it to Ao3. Thank you for your readership and I hope you enjoy this one! Leave a comment if something strikes you and you enjoy it!


	2. Chapter 2

“Master Falborn,” Whittle greeted as he walked into the stables, his dark clothes making the Beta appear more like a shadow than a man.

Gyles peered up at him from where he sat on the wooden stool near to his lantern which illuminated his book.  Folding the corner of his page, he closed the volume and set it down on the small table nearby and clasped his hands between his knees in expectation.

“The sale of the gelding has gone as planned.  I will place the payment in its usual spot.  She has not foaled as yet?”  His eyes flicked to the stall where the heavily pregnant and laboring mare was getting ready to birth.

“No,” Gyles replied.  “She’s a stubborn one, my Molly.  She’s finally decided to lay down, at the very least.  I thank you for your work today.”

Whittle was quiet for a moment before he spoke again and Gyles could hear his mild voice trembling a bit.  “They’d had a bit of excitement today…I know that seems odd for me to say about them but they had passed judgment on a man and had him whipped at sundown.”

“Hmm,” the Alpha replied.  He had found himself rather ambivalent toward the oddities of the Betas who comprised the village to the North though sending Whittle to conduct all of his business there was far more of an inconvenience than anything else they did.  By all accounts, the folks there were better off thinking that all of their business was with another Beta—as their bizarre religious teachings forced every interaction and very explicitly forbade them from even mere contact with the more _volatile_ dynamics. From what Whittle had told him previously, it was unheard of for the majority of the denizens to have even _seen_ another who was not as mild as they.  Still, they managed to retain their humanity one way or another and proved to him quite well that Betas were in no way superior in the least.

“They’ve a strange capacity for…”  Whittle sighed.  “Distance.”

Gyles smirked at him.  “You’re one of them, Whittle.  Can you not say the same about yourself?”

“Ask any of them, Master Falborn, I am in no way a part of them or even the same breed.”  He chuckled low and soft in his very Beta way. “They’ve a very thick line between themselves and outsiders, even those of us who share their dispositions.  It is insidious, their circle.  I should hate to wonder how any of them would ever survive beyond their borders.”

“And those who are shamed?”

“They make do even as they are ostracized.  It slowly wears away, I suppose, like waves over sand.  It gets easier for them even if they have been forever branded or shamed.  In some ways, it is a shared shame.  Hardly any of them can come away unscathed and in their joint punishment…” he shrugged one shoulder.  “There is a joint forgiveness of sorts…a camaraderie.”

“I don’t think so…” Gyles mused.  “Though I’ve not seen it, I’ve heard you speak of them too much to be swayed by your rosy observations of them.  Surely as humans are human, they’ve rationalized their conduct to a hideous degree and even in their own blasphemy will tell you emphatically that theirs was not so bad as their neighbor’s.”

Whittle gave a conciliatory nod to the side.  “There is a saying my mother used to be fond of…”

“Your mother a Beta?”

He smiled wide.  “My mother and my father, yes.  It is most common for Betas to beget Betas, as you know.”  He shuffled to the stall where Molly had eased out the first two hooves of her foal as she lay on her side.  “She used to tell me that if man was stripped of all that made him different and found himself in a world with everyone else exactly the same as he—he should find a means to believe himself better by no later than afternoon.”

Gyles snorted.  “Your mother sounds a wise woman.”

“She was.  You would think her an Alpha for her wit and an Omega for her charm.”

He got up and moved into the stall where Molly was pushing.  With steady hands, Gyles took the forelegs of the foal and pulled, bent over and using his weight to ease the little one into the world with each contraction Molly was driven by.  His sleeves were drawn up to his elbows and his shirt was open at the collar.  His hair was pulled back into a small bun but his work with the horses left strands that sometimes hung about his face and annoyed him by their tickle.  A working Alpha—a gentleman in England who had been left unfulfilled by his lacking purpose now satisfied by his worth here upon an estate he had been granted.  Some called it fortune.  Others called it luck. Gyles preferred to consider it a gift.  That he should find himself so in tune with the horses and fortunate with the nearby villages—no matter how strange the colonies may be—he wished to view as opportunity laid at his feet.  After all, the world owed no man a thing and if Gyles was to be spared its fickleness, he should not question the origin of its grace.

“You know, Whittle,” he grunted as he pulled at the foal with a moderate force, “they seem strange to the outside but any separatist group must have a strict societal code.”

“Theirs is draconian.”

“Ah well.  They think they know what’s best and I’m not about to get in the middle of that.  I’ve no reason to…that is, unless you’ve come to me now to deliver to me your resignation for some reason?”  He lifted a brow at the man.

“Absolutely not.  I’d be mad to leave you to your own devices.  Though to see you striding into that village on the back of your white stallion no doubt would leave me satisfied to my very core—I would not wish to find them more flustered than usual without due cause.”

“Hmm,” Gyles smirked, the image satisfactory in just the manner that Whittle described.  With a gush of fluid and a few more decent pushes, he took the drying sheets that the Beta handed off to him and remarked upon his newest charge as he rubbed the little foal.  “I believe I might just now have another white stallion with which to ride in one day…good work, Molly.”  She craned her neck to look at him and snorted a bit at him, calm and probably tired.

Whittle left him then to retire and he stayed with Molly for a little while, keeping the new foal where he was for the time being until the umbilical cord could do the work it was meant to do and the rest of the birth was successful.  After about an hour, the foal managed to stand on his shaky, spindle-like legs and wobble to his mother.  Only then did Gyles leave the both of them, shedding his ruined shirt on the way back toward the house.  His housekeeper was awake, pulling at her apron.

“I’ve drawn you a bath, Master.”

His voice was low and quiet as not to disturb any others in the house. “Thank you, Lilly.  The foal is well.”

“Praise be.”

On his way up the stairs, Lilly made certain to follow on his left side. It was a habit for most of his servants so that he did not have to look around overly to see them and give them orders and it was a preference of his as well, though as yet unspoken.  His partial blindness, that which afflicted his right eye, was accompanied by a thin, straight scar that cut his brow and trailed over his cheek near to his chin—a tragic fraction of a moment with the tightened string from a harpsichord under far too much tension as a lad.  He did not wish to often think it so, but the injury was possibly part of his motivations to make his journey to New England—he was oft avoided by the gentle and fair Omegas in court and it stung, truly, far worse than the event that had caused it…to know that he could not draw their gaze in want.

The bath was still steaming and Lilly quickly took his clothes from him, intending to wash them first thing when she awoke and to keep them from smelling up his private chamber.  “Should you like me to wash your hair, Master Alpha?”

“No, Lilly.  You go on to bed.  I’ll take care of myself.”

She gave him a curtsy and left with his clothes as he stepped into his bath and sank down, hissing at the way the steaming water rose over his skin.

The new foal was healthy, the year so far had passed smoothly.  The land he had been shaping and forming to his will was providing well and was very nearly self-sufficient.  His needs beyond what he could provide alone were usually easy to fulfill save one—a mate.

It was the Alpha in him that was stung by it and he knew it was more to do with his pride than anything else.  Travelers came from time to time, pilgrims searching for a world they could call their home and Indians displaced by the families that forced their way into “empty” lands.  None with any Omega who cared to look upon him for any length of time, their fathers unwilling to let them go and embarrassed for their lack of a dowry despite their circumstances.  None who had ever seen him for the vital, strong Alpha he was.  Doubt plagued him sometimes, such as now when he sank down and put his mouth just under the water’s surface to blow bubbles between tight lips.  He had been considered handsome—was he not so now?  Or were the traveling colonists simply far too preoccupied to notice that he could provide for their young Omegas?  

He dunked his head below the surface of the water and pulled the ribbon from his hair to let it float around his shoulders, streaked with gray even as he was only mid-way through his thirties.  He washed it and when he was finished bathing, he dried it with care and left it free from his ribbon to flow as he slept—if he did sleep at all. Sometimes, it seemed as though he could not close his eyes and have it come upon him the way that it should and there was really only one remedy to the issue.

He cupped himself at first, just lightly.  Such a thing was merely for comfort usually but tonight he felt blood pulse south and he closed his eyes to conjure something of a fantasy.  Perhaps a fair Omega maiden or even perhaps one of the scruffy little Omega sons that the colonists tucked away and kept hidden when they took refuge in his guest house.  He put his other hand through his hair as he thought about their wide-eyed stares toward him, hopeful and willing.  They knew that they could be cared for…that they could be given something that was rare in the place they still considered the New World.  Peace.  Prosperity.  Children and a mate willing to look after them.  Rather than take care of their family by being forced into domesticity, they could be enveloped into the protective enclave of a prosperous _Alpha_. But they were never given the chance.

Gyles gave himself tender strokes back and forth, tugging with the tips of his fingers and toying with himself as much as he was able until he was fully hard and teasing himself until he was aching.  He sighed. No Alpha would ever think himself complete without having taken and claimed a mate.  He could not consider his work done on this Earth if he could not produce an heir to this estate and this tentative grasp on prosperity that he had dug straight from the Earth years ago.  He was stable now, he was ready to find and marry the sweet Omega of his dreams.  But where were they?  Where could he find them?

No fathers in the nearby villages had ever hinted that their daughters or Omega sons were ripe for him.  No mothers had coyly suggested that he call upon their young.  What was so terrible about him, he thought.  What had made them regard him with such trepidation?  He closed his eyes and banished those thoughts from his mind when he put himself into his fist and began a series of strokes that brought him to the edge and then eased away.  He did this a number of times before he allowed himself the relief of orgasm, his mouth falling open in his private ecstasy.  Too long had he been reduced to this, he thought as he cleaned himself up and turned to his side in order to sleep.

The next morning had him standing next to Whittle as the two of them leaned on the fence to watch the little white foal in the pasture with his mother.  He’d already overseen the work that was being done around the estate, forgone his breakfast in order to mend the roof over the kitchen, and hauled some more hay from storage to the barn. The Beta beside him wasn’t going to be going anywhere today.  Not on Sundays when most of the small villages were distracted by their worship services.

“Should you like to eat, Master Falborn?”

“Perhaps a luncheon…but not now.  Tell me Whittle, am I so frightening?”

The Beta looked at him carefully.  “Frightening, sir?”

“Forgive me.  I shouldn’t burden you with things like this and it’s unbecoming of an Alpha to have these thoughts…but I can’t help but notice that there have been no prospects for…mating.  For me.  Am I…noticeably deficient in some way?”

“N-No…I had merely assumed that you were decidedly uninterested in the matter.  Should you wish for a mate, I will send word to the nearby towns…”

“No, don’t.  That, to me, seems distasteful though I can’t place why.”

“You’re a very busy man, Master Falborn.”

He sighed through his nose and watched the foal explore the grass with his ticklish nose.  “If they have not expressed an interest in me, that is the mothers and the fathers, then perhaps they have thought me…cold, somehow.”

“You’re a mite standoffish, for an Alpha, if you don’t mind my saying so, sir.”

“Do I appear a less than dutiful husband?  Is it…”  His heart squeezed.  “Is it my eye?”

“I’m certain not, sir.”

“I’m downwind, Whittle.  Though you may be a Beta, you still stink when you lie.”

The man took in a long breath of the midsummer breeze and Gyles could practically hear his eyes rolling and his brows lifting to his hairline.  “There is an…intimidation factor, certainly.  Whereby the little ones do shy from you.  It is not your fault, Master Falborn.  If you were to merely have more than just a moment with one of them, they could come to find you as charming and kindhearted as we find you.”

“Please, Beta.  Don’t flatter me.  You find me difficult most days and incorrigible all the others.”

Whittle was grinning.  “You’re a private man.  Do you really believe yourself capable of taking a mate to your bed and sharing with them every small thing about you?”

He felt the side of his mouth tighten when he thought of it that way. “I’ve nothing that requires _hiding_ , Whittle.”

“Oh no, nothing so dramatic as that.  It is merely to say that I’m uncertain of your capacity to share your… _feelings_ with someone.”

He straightened and stared at the man straight-on, squaring his shoulders in his incredulity.  “You doubt my capacity to fall in love.  You know, mateship isn’t always about love.”

“Isn’t it?  You’re a wealthy man, Alpha.  You should be able to afford that luxury.  Though being able to afford something and being able to _do_ something are far removed.”

“You’re impertinent.”

Whittle straightened and gave him a wry grin.  “Are you to dismiss me for it?”

“No…” he grumbled.

“Good. If that’s all, sir, I believe I’ll take my day of rest with Lilly on a picnic if you wouldn’t mind.”

He put up a hand with a soft smile.  “On the morrow I hope you’ll have your head on straight.”

“I wouldn’t count on that, sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I name my horse Gyles in Stardew Valley.


	3. Chapter 3

In reflection, Aymes would eventually note that this morning was different.  Though it was subtle, it was all there.  His fate was not decided in a single moment but in a hundred, nay, a _thousand_ small moments that strung together and synchronized as fireflies glitter over warm fields in the night.  There was a sweetness in the air that he assumed had floated into the window despite the sunny day having no breeze of which to speak and his mouth when he awoke was peculiarly dry.  Distracted, he donned his best set of clothes, modest and a sharp black, and set out to the church with his family, eager to hear his contributions read.  Perhaps, he thought, he was too anxious for he missed everything that was wrong until it was too late.

He was sitting at the end of the pew toward the side and next to Goodfellow who had beckoned him over so that he could pass little notes to him back and forth whenever the ushers were not peering their beady eyes over to prod at them with their jabbing poles to keep them paying attention.  Aymes never wrote notes back but did quite enjoy the commentary that Goodfellow could surreptitiously provide in his scribbles on small bits of soft slate.

“Must be a fantastic liturgy you wrote,” Goodfellow whispered as he sat down.  “You’ve used the good soap—your mother’s perhaps?  Very saucy of her to keep it about.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” he whispered back.  “My mother doesn’t keep saucy soap and my liturgy is nothing to boast about.”

As Reverend Shelton was making his way up to his lectern, Goodfellow got out one more parting shot before he had to fall silent and fish into his pocket for his tiny slate piece.  “Then _why_ , dearest Morehill, do you smell like summer raspberries and falling in love?  Is it a girl that’s got you so sweet?”

He swatted his friend on the arm and settled back into the pew to pay attention as the Reverend cleared his throat.  It wasn’t long into the service that he began to really notice that perhaps it _was_ himself that smelled overly sweet—a strange scent for certain and one that was only faintly familiar to the scent he’d always carried. It wasn’t all that unheard of for scents to alter during the course of puberty—boys having a tendency to have less of the light scent of childhood and to gain a mild musk as they aged.  But this was far different.  This was heavily sweet and nothing like he’d ever smelled before from anyone.  No Beta girl he’d ever gotten close to had ever gained such an attractive scent and certainly no man.  Even as he tried to move it to the back of his mind, it kept seeping forward until it was all he could focus on, the world blurring around him.

He frowned to himself, and blinked slowly as he swallowed, his mouth still dry and his head beginning to get that sort of _woozy_ feeling.  It was stuffy in the church with all the bodies packed together in heat of summer and for once it was beginning to get to him.  He swallowed a few times before he noted his breaths becoming shallower.  Was he going to faint?  Like a little miss, swooning over nothing in the middle of a service?

_What is happening to me?_

“Morehill?” Goodfellow whispered.  “Aymes?  What’s wrong, Aymes?”

His vision was blurring, fogging, and lord, he felt so unbearably _hot_. He felt as if he’d stumbled straight into a brick oven and he panted, putting out his hand toward his friend even as the bizarre fog took his sight.

“Will…” he breathed, “Will…I…I don’t feel well…”

“No, I don’t believe you do.  I’m going to get you out of here, Aymes.”

He didn’t remember how he made it outside though it was significantly cooler there and he vaguely recognized that he was lying on his back upon the grass in the shade of an oak.  He groaned, reaching out for Goodfellow and grasping at his shirt with weak, shaking fingers. “What…what is happening to me?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, friend, but whatever it is, we’ve made a stir interrupting the Reverend like we have.  It’s a fever you’ve got, and not like any I’ve ever seen.  You smell like…like heaven, and you’re burning up.”

“H-Help me…” he groaned, weakly pulling at Goodfellow’s shirt while shivers racked his body.  It was the last thing he remembered before came to a while later to find a wet cloth sticking to his forehead and a candle lit near his bedside.  There was a chair next to him but no one sitting in it.  He could smell the faint trace of his mother and a scent he thought must have been Goodfellow as he lay under his quilts and felt waves of his fever pound at the inside of his skull. “Mmm-Mama?” he rasped, reaching out for the side of the bed and horrified at the state of himself when he moved.

 _What?!_ He lifted his hands to the edge of the quilts and held them tight to his chest.  He was completely nude and his manhood was as stiff as a board.   _How am I…how am I aroused?!  Who has undressed me!?_ He could hear muffled words coming through the door, a low and professional tone.  Perhaps the doctor.  No…it was deeper than his rather lilting tone.  It was most certainly the Reverend.  If his mouth hadn’t been dry before, it was most certainly dry now.

_A fever._

He spotted a glass of water on the small stand nearby and reached for it, pulling it to his lips as though he were dying from it.  The slight tang of the well water was familiar and calming and the water itself quenched as though he had been dying of thirst.  When it was gone, however, the thirst remained and the worry returned.

_A fever!  How?!  How have I brought this upon myself?  Why would this happen to me?  I’ve been nothing but devout.  Surely he knows that. Surely the Reverend could see that.  It can’t be this.  It cannot be that I have somehow failed.  If I have then everyone here should have failed!  Everyone who has been branded, whipped, or placed on the pillory at all should have failed.  I’ve never been!  I’ve read the Bible cover to cover.  I’ve written sermons—I’m supposed to be a Reverend one day, I’m supposed to be part of the great and shining example of our colony!_

He was sitting up, holding the sides of his pounding head and breathing through this hideous panic.  This simply could not be.  This had to be something else.  This had to be something completely different—a _condition_ of sorts that could be cured with some simple direction.

His groin ached with every beat of his heart and his stomach clenched with a need he couldn’t place.  What was this requirement his body sought?  He felt the urge to hold himself, to touch himself and he was horrified.  He couldn’t bring himself to do it and his body shook with the force of his refusal.  Aymes threw himself back into his pillow, holding his hands above his head while an unintentional moan loosed from his throat.

At the sound of it, the door opened and his mother emerged, her face ruddy from upset and her scent murky with distress.  “Oh Aymes, oh! You’re awake and…and…”

“Whuh-what is…what is this?” he asked, panic tinging his voice.

Her hand came over his hair and she petted him while she fretted and shushed him.  “Shhh, baby.  It’s alright.  It’s alright.  Just a wee fever.  That’s all.”

“No… _no…_ ”

Tears seeped from her eyes and in the candlelight formed shiny trails over her reddened cheeks.  “Shhh, don’t you worry.  You’ll be right as rain in a few days.  The Reverend’s seen this type of thing before and—”

“No…no…” He lifted a hand to his own forehead and closed his eyes.  He could smell the Reverend and feel his looming presence.  “ _Flee_ fornication,” he began, swallowing hard as he sighed out the words, “ _Every sin that a man doeth, is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body._ ”

The minister’s voice was deep and soft.  “Very good, Aymes.”

“I suh…I swear…I’ve…I’ve been…I’ve not had…had thoughts…”

There was a pause and then, “It does you no good to protest now, son. God has seen what is inside you.”

“No… _no. There’s been nothing…_ ”

“ _Know ye not, that your body is the temple of the holy Ghost, which is in you, whom ye have of God? And ye are not your own._ ”

“I cannot…I cannot lie to you.  Have you once known me to lie to you?” He could feel tears seeping from the corners of his eyes, wetting his ears and then the pillow.  “Please…tell me once that I have lied to you.  I have not had these sinful thoughts.  I have not once put my hand to myself.  Not even now when every…” he choked for a moment, turning away to gather himself before he met the minister’s eyes once more.  “…when every inch of me is alight with this hideous… _lust._ ”

The Reverend’s eyes were cold in a way he had never seen before.  “My dear Aymes.  Perhaps a boy without a known vice is a boy with a hidden one.  Is this why you have not sought to marry?  Thoughts of men?”

“M-men? No…”

“You ask me to tell you of a time that you have lied to me, my child, and I am witness to it now.  There is but one cause for this affliction and that is hidden sin.  A moral failure, Aymes Morehill.  One that has been buried away deep inside but you forget that the Lord can see those dark places where you hide your sin.  You’ve been lusting for the men of this village and your shame is now clear for all to be warned against you.  Your punishment need not derive from a stand on the pillory for God has done his work far better than we as the sword could achieve.”

“What…? No… _it’s not my fault…_ ” He couldn’t see through his tears.  He couldn’t feel through the numbness.  He wept.  There was naught else he could do.  In less than twelve hours, his whole life had spun about and crashed to the Earth and this— _this_ was something he could not fathom.  How had it occurred?  How had it happened to _him_ of all people?  How could anyone believe that short little Aymes Morehill who spent most of his time scribbling liturgies and sermons could possibly harbor forbidden desires for…for…

_Men!_

He kept his hands from himself after the minister and his mother had left him.  He kept his fingers curled hard into the sheets even as he panted and moaned with the pain of his need.  It was a trap.  He knew that the promise of the end of this was a false one if he reached below the covers and took hold of himself.  It wouldn’t end.  Not with just that.  He was to suffer no matter what and so, upon his righteous hill, he suffered with his morals intact.

_Why bother? You’re doomed anyway.  Why bother keeping from this devilish nature if you’re to be forever branded?  Might as well give in, right?  It is not as if you’re destined for heaven now._

He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached and there were stars in the darkness behind his eyes.

_No. If I’m to become an abomination, I should live more devoted than any.  Rise up against circumstance…_

A wave of heat surged through him from the top of his head down between his thighs and he felt fluid seep from him.  It wasn’t shocking.  It was all part of the whispered hideous secret that this _condition_ became among their ranks.  One couldn’t hide something like this. This was God’s pillory.  He writhed, the fog of need so heavy over him that it felt like a heavy wool blanket laid over every bit of his body.  Every time he thought he was losing control, when his hand would move toward the center of himself, he forced his mind to come back to himself, trembling and shaking with mad desire as he pulled his hand away and anchored it again into the sheets.  He had to stay true.  He had to stay right.  The madness was overwhelming but he had to fight it.

It went on this way for days.  His mother was the only one allowed to see to him and he weakly grasped at her as she soothed him.  Finally, he felt the fever fading and on that morning, felt how weary he’d become.  He had not eaten properly in days.  He wondered how he could emerge from this—how he could survive the reckless judgment. Forever with this scent—this brand.  How could he live?  Aymes stared at the sunlight filtering in through the window and a steady weight came over his heart.  Perhaps it would be better not to leave this small room.  Perhaps it would be better suited for him to stay in this bed and refuse to eat until…

He blinked, the sadness in his heart swelling until his lip trembled and tears welled in his eyes.  He turned onto his side facing the wall and curled into a ball, weeping pitifully.  His new sweet scent twisted into a sour, musty odor and he hated it—he hated everything about it.

“Whew! Man, it smells like someone left their berry harvest to grow mold in here.”

He covered his reddened and wet eyes with his hand and spoke to Goodfellow who was clearly leaning in from the window.  “Go away, Will.”

“Absolutely not.  Heard tell you’d be about ready to come see us this morning and I knew you’d be moping about it.  No, sir.  I will not go away.  Not when you’re crushing yourself under the weight of your overthinking again.”

He gripped the quilts around himself and turned further into his damp pillow.

“Come on, Aymes,” he said, softer.  “It’s not the worst that can happen.”

“Oh? And what is?  Being hanged?  At least there is some dignity in such a thing.  At least a hanged man doesn’t suffer through this teeming madness.”  He let out a few soft sobs, hating to show such weakness but unable to cease it.

“The Reverend said that such a thing is caused by hidden sin but you and I well know, Morehill, you are the most righteous man I’ve ever met. The most righteous in the village.  You may be quiet and private in nature but I know you, Morehill.  You’re no deviant and to assume so is to neglect all knowledge of you and all trust in you.”  He paused for a moment.  “There’s talk of…”

He waited, his ears pricked.  When his patience allowed no more of it, his voice was strained.  “Talk of what, Will?”

“…well…talk of banishment.”

He felt his mouth twitch again, his lip trembling.  “Very well.”

“Very well?  No, Aymes.  Not ‘very well.’  They can’t just leave you on the road like this.  If what they say is true and there are other such deviants—some with…less delicate forms, then what of your safety? What of your well-being?  Your scent is strong, it’s sweet like summer raspberries and cream—you’re quite literally like a rose attracting bees.  How will you protect yourself?”

_I won’t._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kick that Reverend in the teeth. >:[ Aymes is a very good boy. Just also very thirsty. Make sure to leave me a little message! Unless you're rude. Then mind your own business.


	4. Chapter 4

Whittle was sipping a bit of tea in the kitchen when Gyles wandered by in search of something to munch on before supper rolled around.  His mild Beta tone greeted him.  “Good evening, Sir Alpha.”

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in a little while, Whittle.  Has it been a few days?”

“Hah. You’d like that sometimes, wouldn’t you?  Remember, you told Marne and I to go together to pick up the supplies for this month from Brind.  After we came back, I took a small trip to that little Beta colony.  It seems they’re all up in a tizzy about something but you know how they are with interlopers—won’t give up anything to me.”

Gyles made a little humming sound and nodded, picking out a tart from the pantry.  “Mayhap someone’s done something really terrible this time.  For Betas, they do seem to get fussy about the oddest little things.  One would think them more…calm about such matters.”

“Hah. Oh, a courier came and delivered this letter for you.  It seems like it’s from your father’s solicitor back in England.”  He held up a folded letter that Gyles took from his fingers and opened right then.

“ _Mr. Falborn,_ ” he read aloud, “ _I hope this letter finds you well as I have heard of your prosperous colony farm through your father who has also informed me of your as yet unmarried state._ ” He turned a wry stare toward Whittle who passed one back to him in commiseration.

“It seems,” the Beta mused, “That nearly everyone has a mind to your woes.”

Gyles continued and resisted the urge to sigh.  “ _This letter will perhaps reach you with enough time to give you notice that I have informed a young lady of some means to seek out your hospitality.  She is of the Leischester line and headstrong, seeking to find her place in the colonies.  Should she suit you, you should seek to keep her, as it would soothe Lady Leischester to know her daughter was in capable hands._ ” Gyles stopped there and let his eyes roll.  “Whittle, do I appear to be a governess?”

The Beta was clearly holding back his laughter.  “No, not at all sir.”

He peered back down at the letter and lifted his brow high.  “ _As you are by far the most responsible Alpha gentleman I am acquaintance with in the colonies, you were the only choice for my trust in this matter.  Should she wish not to remain at your estate or in the case that she does not suit you, I shall inform the Lord and Lady and compensate you for the guidance I shall hope you provide for her. Yours Sincerely, Mr. Winton._ ” He tossed the parchment to the table and rubbed his face with his fingers.  “Here I am moping about my _unmarried state_ only to find a girl thrust at me with no mention of her particulars at all and—”

“Pardon, sir, but what sort of _particulars_ would you require?”

Gyles stared down at Whittle with his brows tight.  “Well, for one, her age.”

“Marriageable age, I assume.”

“I’ve no taste for the younger end of that spectrum,” he grumbled. “Whether or not she’s presented would have been nice to know.”

Whittle nodded.  “Yes, I suppose that would be nice to know.  Though I hardly think that a family would send her to an Alpha if there were some chance that she would have an unexpected presentation.  It’s likely she’s already presented as an Omega.”  His tone was placating.

Gyles ate his tart nearly all in one bite, perturbed to his very toes. When he’d swallowed it, he sat heavily down next to Whittle at the table and folded his hands in front of him.  “Who would send their Omega daughter to the colonies alone?”

“Perhaps they’d no choice.  A headstrong girl, he said.”

“Trouble,” he growled.  “I’ve no need for any trouble here.  I’ve enough to worry about.”  With that, he stood up and headed out to the pasture where Molly and her foal were grazing.  

The little colt was full of energy and very healthy, often running about like a wild thing and nearly tripping over his own spindly legs.  As far as young foals went, he was smarter than most of them and they’d had no trouble at all getting him to feed properly.  Molly, ever the patient mother, seemed very content with this one though she did keep an eye out for him when he was being especially raucous.

He watched his staff feed the chickens and tend the gardens, he watched them putting out the wash to dry in the summer wind that was warmer than English breezes but still somewhat cool even in the hottest of months.  When he was called in for supper, he ate it but his mind was still roiling about with that wretched letter.

He had been bemoaning that he could not find an Omega willing to marry him and here was one being thrust upon him.  He supposed that as her legal ruling Alpha, she would be compelled to marry him if he did find her suitable but…   _But._ It did not much matter if she were plain, for what was beauty to him anyhow?  It didn’t even much matter if she were overly young—for that he supposed he could wait.  What did matter was that she was interested in him in the least?  After all, he could not fathom a marriage with a creature who did not at least _desire_ him…and not only when her body screamed at her to mate with him. If not passion, he wished at least for warmth.  Could he find that with a wayward girl?

Gyles sat himself down in his parlor with a glass of American whiskey and watched the fire burn down, his thoughts tapering off into nearly nothing until it was late enough for him to hear the crickets singing in the dark outside.  From some distance away, he could hear thunder though the storm had not quite yet made it to him.  The staff puttered about even at this late hour, putting everything to rights in case the storm did come through this way.

Lilly’s gentle voice roused him from his near-dozing and he straightened in his chair.

“What was that, Lilly?  I’m afraid I was almost asleep.”

“A Lady Amanda, to see you, sir.”

“Lady Amanda…” he murmured, nearly forgetting where he was.  For a few moments, he was younger and the fire was that of his favorite parlor in his father’s home.  It took him a second or two to come back to America and his relatively modest stone hearth  “Oh…”

“Should I make some tea, sir?”

“Yes. Of course.  Bring her in, would you?”

“Yes, sir Alpha.”  Lilly disappeared as he stood, half-turning toward the door with his hands clasped behind him.  He must have looked a fright without any cravat and with his shirt open at the collar.  Thank goodness, he thought, that he was still in his waistcoat.

Lady Amanda was quite young but not overly so and she was very small and pale.  Her shoulders were narrow and her posture stiff.  There were hardly any gentle curves to her and it was clear that she had possibly lost weight on her journey overseas.  She was not sickly though the fragile skin below her eyes betrayed a weariness that he recognized well as the weariness of soul common in burdened Omegas. Her yellow hair was pulled up in a simple chignon that was revealed when she removed her bonnet, her trembling fingers smoothing back the loose wisps that had come undone.

He bowed to her formally.  “Lady Amanda.  I received word of your coming only just this morning.”

Her eyes came to him only to flick downward from the sight of his ruined eye and the long scar that accompanied it.  She held her gloved hands in front of her and twisted her fingers together nervously, her scent muddy and laced with a slight primal fear.  She overcame it quickly and frowned even as she kept her gaze from him and allowed a fast curtsy after having remembered to perform one.  “Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Falborn.  I apologize for having arrived so late. It is difficult to find accommodations in this country or I would have insisted upon arriving on the morrow.”

“It is no bother,” he assured her, watching her shoulders tremble slightly.  “Why don’t you sit down?  You must be tired.  I’ve already had Lilly prepare your room; have you brought a maid?”

“Yes…”

“Very good.”  He remained standing until she had floated herself down onto his settee and Whittle brought in the tea which Gyles poured. Her hands were still shaking when she took the cup and saucer from him so he sought to soothe her as best he could.  “I presume that Mr. Winton informed you of my estate and position here in the colonies.”

She still wasn’t looking at him, keeping her gaze from his eye.  “I was informed that you were successful…if not a bit…”

“Aloof?” he asked, settling himself back down in his chair.  “Forgive me, Lady Amanda, but your exodus from England has me puzzled.  That a family should allow their lone Omega daughter to flee to the colonies…and I do say ‘flee’ for there can be no other explanation—you must be running from something.”

Her lips were tight together and it was obvious that she wished he would not pry.  Her past was likely sordid and plagued by moments and emotions she would rather forget.  There were only so many things that could send a woman as far as the colonies.  Scandal such as being compromised by an unsuitable man or even having a bastard child—though he did not see evidence of one.  He tilted his head, searching for a mark upon her neck that he could not find in the firelight.

“No matter,” he remarked softly.  “I hope that you will find some peace here, Omega.  I certainly have.  Have you any queries of me before I retire?”

She gave a very small shake of her head as her eyelashes fluttered. “N-No, sir.”

“Then I will leave you.  Lilly will show you to your room and your maid shall attend to your needs.  If you should require me for any reason, Mr. Whittle should be available to find me.”  He stood, moving toward the door when he heard her meek voice again.

“Mr. Falborn?  Sir Alpha…”

He turned.  “Yes, little one?”

She swallowed, still unable to bring her eyes to his face.  “I…” Her words faltered and died and she seemed to rethink what she wished to say to him, fumbling out her weak words.  “Thank you…”

He nodded and retreated to his room, stripping to nothing and laying under his quilts with his brows firmly knitted.  He shouldn’t have drunk the tea, he thought grumpily.  Now he was stuck thinking about her and wide awake, staring up into the darkness and consumed with the thought that he was to be the guardian of some troublesome girl with more secrets than he had patience for.  It was too much that Winton had sent her here and he’d no idea as to her intentions.

What was it that she wanted?  I wouldn’t have been fair in the least to simply ask her that when she was so newly arrived so he resolved to ask it of her the next morn when he could have a fresh mind and she could have a night to formulate her answers to him.  Perhaps she was young enough that she was not so versed in the manipulations of the _ton_.  Perhaps that was wishful thinking and he was to be played like a fiddle.

She was perhaps eighteen with the poise and grace of a gentlewoman of good breeding.  Her scent was sweetly floral though he had not come near enough to her that she could have enticed him with it.  She was not plain but not particularly beautiful either, though it could have merely been the state of her at arrival—perhaps she would brighten.

_Does she know that Winton intends for me to marry her?_

Surely she must, he answered himself.  She was young but she was not stupid and whether she was sent unwillingly or came on her own—she needed a guardian.  A mate would be the most ideal of protectors and when it came to those outside of England, he was a fine option indeed.  That was, on paper of course.  She couldn’t even stand to look at him, how was she to stand to marry him?  The thought made his heart squeeze so he pulled up his covers and turned on his side, dragging a pillow to his chest before he forced his eyes closed.  If he couldn’t sleep, at least he could lay here with his eyes shut for a while.  After all, the next day he only had to mend the broken bits of fence and take down the tree that had been struck by lightning in an early spring storm.  He could do both of those things while mildly exhausted…right?

He gave a little “harumf” to himself and a sniff at his memory of Lady Amanda sitting stiff and unsteady on his settee.  He couldn’t bring himself to want her.  To do so would be a mistake and he could not allow himself to make such a grave error.  An Omega in his home that was so suitable and yet so frigid…he couldn’t allow himself to truly want her or take her.  She had no guardian to protect her from him—only him to protect her from others.

_And myself._

After a fitful hour of tossing and turning he finally was able to sleep, coming awake the next morning far too early and setting out while the sun was still rising with his hatchet in hand to take care of the tree that required felling.  When it was done, the heat of the day was beginning and the dew had all evaporated into the humid air.  He took a walk around the perimeter of his fields to look at the places where the fences needed mending before he came back to the house to find Lady Amanda sitting outside on a blanket in the shade with some fruit for her breakfast.  His own stomach was quick to remind him that he had not yet eaten.

“Would you like to join me, Alpha?” she asked, her tone far more bold this morning.  She appeared rested and well though still burdened and weary from it.  Her posture was submissive, her head down and her eyes away, almost as if she were ashamed of herself.

He sat easily and plucked at the fruit on the platter, waiting for her to fill the silence.  She did not disappoint.

“I see you do not shy from work.”

“One cannot afford to laze about like the nobles of the Captial,” he mused darkly.  “It may seem idyllic but I promise you, my Lady, the colonies are far a far less forgiving land.”

“I’ve heard of the skirmishes with the Indians,” she stated lightly.  “I had hoped that your estate was far enough from the wilds…”

“Their lands are far from wild, and so are they,” he told her.  “They’re as civilized as you and I.”

She made a light scoff and stared at him chidingly.  “You cannot tell me such a thing.  They paint their faces and hoot and holler, do they not?”

“And the dandies in England who powder themselves and their white _perukes_. They do not hoot and holler in the gambling halls and with their mistresses?”  Her reddened cheeks and flustered scent told him he’d gone far enough to make her rethink herself and her words.  “Tell me, Lady Amanda…why did you come here?  It is not for the wilds, surely.”

She picked at the lace on the hem of her skirts.  “You certainly do come to the heart of the matter quickly, Mr. Falborn.”

“I’ve no patience for equivocation, little one.”

“Then I will share the tale.”  She gave a ladylike sniff.  “I found myself in the company of a gentleman who insisted upon mateship.  He was not of the mind that our courtship required the opinions of my father or my mother and now that I have survived the ordeal, I do understand the audacity of the gentleman.  My father informed me that my options were to be married to one of his more experienced compatriots on the continent or to risk my life in a journey to the colonies.  Knowing exactly the sort of companion my father would choose for me there, I asked Mr. Winton for his opinions and now here I am in your company, Alpha.”

“And your intentions?”

“Goodness,” she smiled.  “You Alphas are quite all the same, aren’t you?”

“You must bring yourself to regard the matter through my perspective, my Lady.  I receive a note from my father’s solicitor about a well-bred Omega who finds her way to me that very night.  She’s tight-lipped and rightfully wary of me despite clearly having come rather willingly into my protection.  Here you are and you’ve invited me without chaperone to sit, I can only imagine that your intentions are to…”

Her face was entirely pink.  “Are you of the opinion that I ought to be seducing you, Mr. Falborn?”

“And what do you know of seduction?  You’re hardly beyond your girlhood.”

“Against the knowledge and wisdom of an older Alpha?  I can hardly hold conversation of it.  It is not as though I’ve much experience in the matter, though that does not seem to matter for much when there are certain elements in play.”

“Oh? Is that your game then?” he asked, staring at her as she kept her eyes from him.  “Hold yourself with poise until you can’t resist the draw?  Overcome your disgust of me through your instinct?”

Her head snapped toward him and she looked at him fully in her affront. “What?”

“Your disgust.  It is apparent, little one.  You can hardly stand to look at me.”  He’d said it softly enough though she had clearly not expected for her feelings to be laid so bare in the shade of a pleasant afternoon.

She licked her lips as she blinked and collected her scattered thoughts. “Your appearance did… _startle_ me at the first.  I hadn’t considered that you…that any…”

“If you’re looking for a tragic tale of Indian attack or the like, you may save your questions.  It was nothing so exciting.”  He was toying with her now even as he internally tore at himself for having brought her to such disgruntlement.  “I apologize, my Lady. Obviously, my years without a little novelty swishing about have done their damage to my etiquette.”

“Is that what I am?  A little novelty?”  She seemed peeved at the thought.

“Is that not what you wished to be?”

Her ire loosened her tongue and her admission came readily.  “I wished to be your _wife_ , Mr. Falborn, not some trinket you kept in your cabinets.”

“Ah,” he sighed, laying down on the blanket and feeling amused and somewhat vindicated as his suspicions were proven entirely correct.

She paused only for a moment.  “Is that all you have to say?  Are you not in want of a wife?”

“I suppose I am.”

“Then what argument can you have against me?”

He frowned up at the blue sky above and at the leaves on the sycamore that shaded them.  He could tick them all off and list them to her neatly and well-formed but were they legitimate?  He had bemoaned his state only hours before and now faced with her—he hesitated.  Why? Turning his head so that he might look at her again, he gave her a small pitiful smile.  “Oh, little Omega.  I’ve not the heart to argue against you.  Still.  I won’t marry you.”

Her scent soured considerably.  “You won’t?!”

“What did you expect?” he asked lightly, ignoring the bite in her tone. “Church bells ringing as soon as you walked into my parlor?  I’ll find you a mate if you wish.”

“My intent was for _you_ to be my mate!”

“Consider yourself irresistible do you?”

With her scent sticky with anger, she got up from where she sat, her skirts rustling around her.  She looked down at him where he lay and tried her best to keep her poise as she remarked at him soundly, “I may not be the most comely of girls but my countenance through my years has faired far better than yours, Alpha.  I had hoped that your ugliness was confined to that wretched eye but I suppose that was too much to ask and it has seeped into your manners as well!”

“Ah, the claws,” he mused, closing his eyes and bringing his hands up to rest his head in them.  “If it were truly considered ill-mannered to spurn a marriage request, one should have all the girls in London spanked a time or two.”

She gave a short shriek of frustration before she stomped away toward the house.  His most promising chance to be married now fuming and flustered over his refusal of her.

_What is wrong with me?_  He couldn’t quite begin with that.  To have something fall into his lap the way she had and for her to be so damned cold…perhaps it was just his own disposition.  Why should he resent something only because it was easy?   _Overly easy._  It was too simple to tell himself that he could not marry a girl who found him repulsive.  Wasn’t it?  If she was willing to come to him on the eve of a heat, did it matter that she couldn’t stand the sight of that bluish filmy eye?

He supposed, as he gazed upward toward the sky, that it shouldn’t. There was something to be said of the detriment of an Alpha’s pride, he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus Chapter! :D


	5. Chapter 5

That he had been spared the pillory was one aspect of the incident for which he would remain grateful.  That his mother had managed to take it upon herself the burden of letting him go without the gawking terrible eyes of everyone else was a feat in and of itself in his mind.  He had made no argument against this.  He had made no stir. Goodfellow had, to his detriment, railed against the whole matter and had, miraculously, ended without a single lashing even as he was viciously threatened for his defense of Aymes against the brand of _fornicator._  It didn’t much matter that he was a virgin for whatever had occurred in his mind was as if it had occurred in the flesh, though he couldn’t conjure a moment in his memory that would bring _this_ from heaven to his doorstep.  He was defended by one true friend and still, he could not ask that the Beta help him in any other form but to tell him goodbye.

Will was the only other than his mother who stood out on the road with him, the dirt hot beneath their shoes and the sun harsh from an open blue sky.  It was far too brilliant of a summer morning for this to be his fate and as he let his eyes wander to the meadow and the grasses that swayed in the breeze, he thought perhaps that it might be a good day to lay in the grass and let himself be swallowed by the earth.

“Aymes,” his mother wept, taking his hand and kissing his knuckles while he looked at her blankly.  “I wish that you would remember that I love you.  Still.  After all this.  I could not stop it as I could not stop the rain.”

He looked at her, seeing her for the first time as her age.  The colony’s women were most often a hardy sort who showed more strength and will than any other emotion and here she was before him and weeping for him.  He came to her and put his arms around her, pressing his lips close to her ear to whisper.  “ _Please forget me._ ”

“There is no chance of it, my darling Aymes.”  When she had backed away from him, she motioned for Will to come forward and he did.

His friend sighed.  “The Reverend claimed my defense of you was derived from my exposure to your scent,” he explained.  “Thus I was not to blame for my heinous actions.  You always did think I was terribly lucky, didn’t you?”  He nipped Ayme’s nose with his fingers softly. “You won’t wander into the forest to get scalped by the Indian’s, will you?” he asked, managing to conjure a small smile from Aymes’s lips.  “There it is, eh?  You’re not without joy yet.”

“I cannot ask you to come with me, Will, but I cannot foresee where I shall find joy without my friend.”  He felt tears well up behind his eyes and he blinked them away.  He had lost enough of them already.

“I should go…” Will said plainly.

“No. This is my fate.  Not yours.  You know where you belong and I know where I don’t.”

“That’s ridiculous, and you know it.  You belong with your mother.  You belong with us.  You grew up here, we know you.  You’re not what they say you are.”  Will’s face screwed up with his emotion before he came forward and took Aymes into an embrace and squeezed him tight. “You’re the closest friend I’ve ever had.  I’m certain that half the village must think that your affections were solidly upon me and I can honestly say to you, Aymes, I should never accuse you of that. I know you.  I know you’ve never seen me that way.  Nor anyone. Should you have any affliction of deviancy, it should be that of having no predilections at all.  I’m going to miss you, Aymes.”

He let himself hold his friend for another moment before he pulled away reluctantly.  “Do not let them think you’ve any fondness for me, Will.  Please.  Hold your tongue when they speak ill of me.  Do not say my name.  I cannot forgive myself if I come to find you’ve been ruined because of me.”

“You say all this as if I’m to hold myself back from my bitterness toward them.”  He touched Aymes’s face.  “It is not that beautiful scent that bewitches me.  It is in my knowing of you.  I will never have another friend like you.”

One tear found its way over his cheek and was caught by Will’s finger. Aymes pulled at his friend’s wrists to bring them away from him. “You’ll smell like me.  This scent is prolific.  Do not give them a reason to hate you.  Maybe someday I will see you again.”

Will sighed through his nose.  “Maybe that day will be happier.”

“Maybe.” He let go then, turning and picking up his small sack of food.  He didn’t look back.  He couldn’t bring himself to.  Not when there was a huge metal cannonball in his gut that felt as though it would burst forth in a wave of hard emotion at any moment.  The gunpowder of his volatile soul had built a pressure he was sure would explode and when it did, he was certain that there would be no other reaction in him but a primal scream of rage.

_Father. Why have you forsaken me?_

He let go a heavy breath and chastised himself for his arrogance.  The further he walked, the easier his steps became over the crumbling dry soil and he stayed off to the right of the road with his sack over his shoulder.  Soon, he came to a hardy wooden fence and it was against one of the posts that he sat to eat his lunch.

He picked at the bread his mother had given him and stared off into the forest on the other side of the road, watching the birds flit through the trees and the small red chipmunks skitter between the bushes. There was such peace here alone, he thought.  Though there was so much uncertainty, he could find something here, no doubt.  Though the world and those beyond what he knew seemed frightening, at least here and now there was a tranquil sort of solemnity.

A movement among the trees shattered that tranquility and his heart was suddenly in his throat when he stood up against the fence post.  He watched, terrified, as the small Indian peered at him from around the trunk of a thick maple.

“Please…” he blurted, his hands out.  “I’ve nothing.  Please leave me be.”

It dawned on him that though he knew of them, he had never actually _seen_ one before and this in itself bothered him most.  The small man was nearly naked, having nothing upon his bronze flesh save a decently sized breechclout and slippers along with heavy hoops that dangled from his ears.  His hair was long and swept to one side, giving him a coy appearance even as he boldly stepped to the limit of the opposite side of the road.

“Please come no closer,” Aymes asked of him in a shaking tone.  “I’ve nothing you want.”  He was unsure whether or not the man could understand him and concluded that he surely could not when he was approached further.  “Oh no!  No!  Please!”

The Indian ducked a bit, looking this way and that as if searching for anyone else before he quickly burst forward and snagged at Aymes’s sack.

“No!” He reached out and grasped at the other end of it, pulled against the Indian’s yanking and grappling mightily for it.  It was his only food and enough to last him at least three days—he couldn’t be without it.  Hit by the sweet scent of the thief, he recognized suddenly that this creature was much like _him._

_Am I to be so desperate as well?  A savage living in the woods? Stealing bits of food from passersby?_

“Mmgh!” the other grunted, pulling against the sack with all his might so that Aymes was lurched forward, stumbling in the middle of the road and dragged for a few feet before he was forced to let go.  He was gone then, careening off into the forest without another sound save for the crunch and snap of the twigs beneath his feet.

“No! Please!” Aymes cried, his voice loud but stunted by the trees. Laying in the dirt, his emotions overtook him and he put his face down and let his wracking sobs take him.  Should a cart and horse come, he would that they would simply run him over.  His whole form felt weak and pitiful and he lay there for was seemed to be a long time in the sun with his black clothes soaking up the heat and rendering him even more lethargic than he had been only from his weeping.  Finally, when there was no more left in him, he managed to pull himself up, trembling and dirty.  He sat staring into the woods for a long time, letting the wet trails of his tears dry on his cheeks.

A tiredness came over him and he turned around and crawled back to the fencepost, letting himself collapse in the grasses there.  He closed his eyes, curled into himself, and dozed despite it being only mid-morning.  He could not have snoozed long for it still felt early in the day when he was roused by the sound of steady hoof beats approaching.

He raised himself up, leaning heavily on the post and staring off so that perhaps the rider would leave him be.  He was a lone rider with no cart nor saddlebags.  Aymes tried to keep his gaze to the grass near him and as such, he could not tell what the gentleman looked like save for how oddly large he seemed even as he sat in the saddle. A dirt-covered vagrant such as himself should not cause any to stop or speak to him so he continued to ignore the stranger until the horse stopped and Aymes felt his panic take root.

“Alright, Omega?”

_Omega?_ He closed his eyes, praying to the God who’d done this to him to make this stranger go away.   _What is “Omega?”_  The man had said it as though he were speaking Aymes’s name, familiar and tinged with authority.

The man slid from the saddle and Aymes’s body tensed.  He could smell his own fragrant scent bitter in his nose with his fear as his heart fluttered away in his chest.  With all his might, he kept his eyes closed even as he winced away from the shadow of the man who came before him.

“Alright. It’s alright.”

He didn’t speak.  He didn’t move.  He didn’t dare.

A scent came to him, powerful and masculine and spiced like pine and earth.  He’d never smelled anything like it in his life and his nose reached for it, the more of it coming the more burning it felt.

“I don’t mean you harm, little one.”  His voice was deep but smooth with an edge to it that made Aymes’s heart skip with its nervousness. “Are you alone?”

Aymes pressed his lips tight together.  A lump in his throat had made it impossible for him to reply anyhow and his scent grew even more bitter.

“Are you hurt?”  There was a pause.  “Where is your Alpha?”

_What is an “Alpha?”_

“You know, in good conscience, I can’t allow you to stay like this on the side of the road.”

Aymes heard and felt him kneel, so close that that vexing scent was all around him, invading his nose and his brain and filling him with an earnest pulse of confusion.  In a movement that was completely beyond his understanding, his head tilted to the side, baring the flesh of his throat to this stranger as if it such a display could have aided him.

_What am I doing?_

“You don’t have to be frightened of me.  Are you hungry?  A few of my apple trees have produced already and you may have as many as you like.  Let me sit with you a while.  Then you can tell me where you ought to be.”

More tears welled up and spilled over and he hid his face in his hands.

“No, no, no…I can’t abide that.”  His hands were big and strong and he pulled Aymes by his upper arms, sitting in the grass next to him and pulling him until he was almost in his lap, cradled by his iron arms.

Aymes began to struggle but was rendered limp and near-boneless when a steady pressure from the man’s fingers came to the back of his neck. By all rights, he should have been in a complete and utter panic but with just this vice-like grip that was both strong and gentle at once, he surrendered, his face brought to a broad shoulder.

_Brilliant orange sunsets through the pines, shimmering in rays over the wildflower meadows.  The sound of crickets in purple dusk and the milky stars that shined just past twilight.  Calm.  Peace.  The sound of smokey pine popping in the hearth and the sticky residue left over. Wandering the dandelions and the honeysuckle and poking at the spiders who only wished to capture their next meal in brilliantly formed dew-soaked webbing.  Dawn.  Change and uncertainty.  A thousand mixtures of emotion tumbling through moments of brightening and darkening.  Lost._

“ _Help me…_ ” he managed past the lump in his throat.  “ _Help me. Help me.  Help me._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gyles for the love of God, help him.
> 
> Enjoying the story? Let me know in a comment! You don't have to. Lurking is valid--but I _like_ comments.


	6. Chapter 6

Gyles had not yet met an Alpha who was stone hearted enough to resist so desperate and so obvious a plea from a lone Omega.  He had no Alpha scent upon him and only the weak scents of Betas trapped still against his clothes.  He was utterly without a guardian and this time when Gyles asked himself internally if he appeared as though he were a governess, the question came to him with a tad more humor.   _If I am to become a guardian for many wayward little ones, I will have to expand my estate!_

He rubbed at the boy’s neck and back, allowing for every teardrop to be soaked into his waistcoat as well as the rest of the mess of his weeping.  From the force of the poor creature’s emotion and the mouldering odor of his grievous scent, it was obvious that the Omega had faced a terrible ordeal and was, in fact, still currently amidst the turmoil.

“Shush, little one,” Gyles murmured to his ear when the sobs had tapered into hiccups.  “You’re alright.  I’ve got you.  Gracious, something must be terribly amiss for you’ve made a mess of me and yourself. Once you’ve the strength and will to stand, I’ll have you unburden yourself.  I swear to you I’ve a willing ear.”

It took him a bit of time to compose himself and when he did, he breathed heavily Gyles’s concerned Alpha scent and over the moments became calmer.  His eyes were red-rimmed and weary when he sat up and put his arms up to hug at himself, pulling from the Alpha’s touch. His hair was a glossy deep brown that had taken some light during the summer and so was dusted with strands of red which would likely fade in winter and his eyes were a hungry and pitiful green—an emerald that would have sparkled should he have been inclined to but smile. A stunning example of an Omega, even as he was covered in flaking mud and smelling rank as he was with his grief.

“Well, Omega?”

He winced at the word and covered his face with his hands.  “I don’t…I don’t _understand._ ”

Gyles blinked.  “What about this don’t you ken, little one?  That I should listen to your woes?  I swear to you, I’m not the brute you likely believe me to be.”  He gazed off to his stallion who was munching on grass a few steps away.  “We’re not all uncouth. Though I suppose I can be, at times.”  He thought back to how he had spoken to Lady Amanda and felt heat in his cheeks.  Embarrassed? Him?  Preposterous.

“All of these things.  What have I done?  What have I done to deserve this?”  He seemed to begin another bout of riling up and so Gyles put his hands on either side of the boy’s face and drew his eyes.

“Keep hold over yourself, you’re perfectly alright now.  Where is your home?”

“I’ve…I’ve… _I’ve…_ ” the pitch of his voice heightened with his emotion and Gyles realized suddenly that it was the wrong question to have asked.  “ _I’ve no home…none…_ ”

“Shhhh, oh gracious, please don’t weep anymore, an Alpha can hardly handle it.  How about a walk, hm?  A walk and some apples, and you don’t have to speak to anyone you don’t wish to and we’ll stay right upon the road until you’re ready to make your next decision, alright? I’ll not rush you.  My name is Gyles.”  Such familiarity toward an Omega was highly untoward but in this case, he forgave himself as it didn’t seem that there was a soul to watch over this poor little one who might have cared otherwise.

He wiped at his eyes, huffing in those unsteady breaths that come part and parcel with grief as he weighed his options.  “I’m…I’m Aymes.”

“Good morning, Aymes.  How about it?”

The Omega gazed at him, seeing him truly for the first time it seemed. His eyes took in Gyles with a gentle scrutiny and ended upon his ruined eye which he studied intently.

_Ah, it is either this or he refuses to look upon me at all.  I’m almost undecided which of the options I prefer…_

Finally, the little one got up and looked away, skittering a bit to the side when Gyles also stood, his Alpha form obviously startling the boy for sheer size.  He kept a distance between himself and the Alpha and Gyles was keen to note that he was disheveled and dirty though save for that he appeared healthy despite his skittishness.

“What brings you out here alone?” he asked, beginning to walk and to lead his stallion onward as an incentive for Aymes to follow.

“I would rather not say,” was the abrupt reply.

“Fair enough, you owe me no answers.”  He cleared his throat.  “Can you tell me where you are from?”

“Haverton. Or…I _was_ …”

“I daresay that if one was born or raised in someplace, it is difficult then to remove oneself from the legacy of—”  Gyles gave pause and thought upon it for a moment.  “Haverton, you said?”  That was the odd community of Betas, he thought curiously.  How an Omega had originated there was a bit of a novelty, wasn’t it?  Though Betas often beget Betas, it was not entirely unheard of for a family to produce another of the dynamics though if a line was _entirely_ comprised of them, it was certainly rare.  “How curious,” he mused to himself before another thought struck him suddenly.

_Has he been exiled?_

His gaze fell to the little one beside him and he took in the evidence: the scent of heavy grief, the dirt over him from the road, how utterly lost and frightful he seemed— _good lord.  The boy’s been excommunicated._  Gyles at once felt a bizarre sort of pity for the little thing and a wariness of sorts as well.  Aymes had probably never seen an Alpha before in his life—nor an Omega.  He was at the mercy of near anyone who came across him and it had been sheer luck that it had been Gyles who’d found him.  But this meant that he was to be handled delicately.  At least, as delicately as Gyles could manage.

“No matter, then,” Gyles told him cheerfully.  “I suppose you’re off to find your destiny or some such matter.  You know, I’ve been looking for a…”  He examined Aymes thoroughly as if to find on him evidence of some apprenticeship, though his hands were not rough enough to have worked in fields or with trades.  “Uh…well a few things actually, pray tell me what profession have you found yourself favorable, Aymes?  My estate has varying needs at the moment.”

“Your…” he frowned.  “Your estate?  Are you…are you a wealthy man?”

“Relatively, I could be called so.  Your profession?”

The Omega’s frown did not let up.  “I…I was supposed to be a…a minister…”

Gyles could have winced.  That wouldn’t do at all, especially if the poor thing had been cast out.  “I don’t suppose I’ve a requirement for a minister as we’re quite happily with the presence of a very efficient one of our own…nevertheless, you’re a very intelligent little fellow, I can tell.  Perhaps you’re keen to do a bit of business for me.  How is your penmanship?”

“It is very fine, sir.  Though I am not quite certain as to what exactly I could do for you…or why you should even so much as offer.  I am…”  He looked down at himself.  “I am…” his tears welled. “A shameful thing.”

“Please do not cry, you’ve no idea what it does to me and I shan’t tell you for fear of your ridicule.  I offer because you seem a rather lost little gentleman and if you’re from Haverton then surely you’re a man who’s been of some use.  Should you find yourself without a use, as you seem to be currently, then it is only natural that a use should find you.  Should it not?”

Aymes had to think about it for a few moments, tracking over his words in his mind before he looked upward, unafraid of Gyles’s eye.  “I…I suppose…”

“Clearly there is some meaning to my having stumbled upon you in the road and there must be some meaning to you having been stumbled upon.  Things really do happen for reason, don’t they?”  The breeze was cool and rustled the grasses on the other side of the fence in the meadows where he could see his horses grazing in the distance.  “Tell me, Aymes.  Do you like horses?”

“I guess I like them well enough.”

“If you like them well enough then I should like you well enough.  If you’ve nowhere to be or nowhere to go, then I should insist that you rest yourself at the estate and get yourself cleaned up.”  The fence turned inward at the long winding drive that led to the manor house and Gyles wrapped the stallion’s reins around the fence post before he meandered over to an apple tree and picked on.  He examined it for any pests before he offered it to the Omega who took it easily.  “No need to make a decision quickly.”  He motioned for Aymes to eat and picked one for himself.

Gyles leaned against the tree, studying the way the little one held the apple in his hand and toyed with it against his soft lips for a moment before he sank his teeth into its flesh.  He was handsome in all the delicate ways that an Omega ought to be handsome and pretty in all the others.  More than that, Gyles had never come across an Omega who did not have a single idea of how attractive he was to an Alpha or anyone else for that matter.  It was quite distracting to note how his every movement was candid rather than rehearsed—a product of living his whole life without the thought that he could be in any fashion a sexual creature.  In the same manner, that which attracted the Alpha in turn disturbed him—such innocence was decidedly unnatural.

He didn’t wish to spook the poor little creature and as such, he wasn’t certain which questions could have the desired effect of keeping him at the estate.  Of course, his motives were muddled, even to himself. Why bother with such a thing if he was already peevish about becoming Lady Amanda’s governess?  This was merely filling his house with needy pests, wasn’t it?  Though, as he stood there and examined the exile, he couldn’t find himself peevish at all about looking after such a boy.  He was old enough he should be capable of work and he was _not_ of noble blood which immediately made him far more valuable when it came to survival in a world such as this one.  So then, he pondered, what in the world was safe to ask?

“How old are you?”

He swallowed the morsel of apple he’d chewed.  “Twenty.”

“A fine age to seek one’s fortune.”

“Forgive me,” Aymes told him softly.  “I had not reason to seek a fortune.”

Gyles grinned.  “Sometimes fortunes find us and not always are they as kind as we wish.  I, for one, would rather have grown to such an age with both of my eyes.”

His response was soft but clear.  “A punishment.”

“Perhaps. But a small one in the grand scheme.  I’ve an otherwise perfectly acceptable and even enviable life.  It is all in how one perceives the events that give them any of their meaning.  No event or action has any inherent value, it is only in what you’ve learned that gives it any base in morality.”  He chewed his bottom lip and then conceded, “That’s probably not something a boy who was to be a minister should hear from me.”

“Forgive me, sir.  I cannot trust you.”

“How can you trust anyone?  I take fate in my hands every time I reach out.  How do I know that tomorrow morning, I won’t wake up to find you gone and the silver spoons missing?”

Aymes appeared overtly affronted, his face contorting into disgust.  “That you should even suggest…”

“Exactly. I’ve as much reason to trust you as you have to trust me.”

The edges of his mouth twitched downward and Gyles suddenly thought himself very wicked for wanting to experiment with how the boy might react to a kiss.  Aymes murmured humbly, “My sins are boldly pronounced to any with a nose and so I suppose it is only fair that yours are pronounced to any with eyes.”

“Practical and fair,” he joked.  “Should you like a proper meal?  A bath?”

He tossed the apple’s core away from him and looked up at the Alpha again, clearly mulling it over.  “What you said before…about…about fortunes finding folks.  About meanings behind things…you weren’t merely being facetious, were you?”

“Of course not.  I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

He nodded seriously.  “I must seem terribly wary…”

 _Not wary enough, little one._  “Your wariness is perfectly understandable.  Should you like another apple or are you ready for something more substantial?”  Aymes didn’t say anything but he took a tiny step forward which was enough for Gyles to turn about and begin the walk up the winding dirt path that led to the estate.  They were silent until they reached the manor and Gyles gave his stallion to the boy who came out from the stables for him.  He waved a hand toward the stone steps.  “Nothing like the gilt of London but enough for wayward souls, I suppose.”  He led the boy through the heavy wooden doors and into the front hall where he took his dirty coat and motioned the way toward the kitchens.  “Let’s get you something more to eat before we have you sinking into a hot bath, hm?”

Aymes was peering around himself, staring in awe at the large clock that stood against the wall and at the pieces of colorful art that depicted simple scenes of New England’s landscapes.  “I’ve never seen a…a clock like this…”

“It’s from England.  Crafted by a man named Fenn.  I took it with me when I left and I’ve a great soft spot in my heart for it, much as that surprises many.”

“Why should that surprise anyone?” he asked, his wide eyes again turned to Gyle’s form.  “It’s…beautiful.”

“Beauty should not be the basis for emotion, though I should not have to tell a man from Haverton that.”

All at once, the Omega dropped his head and a hint of shame shimmered through his scent.

“Come along,” Gyles told him lightly and led him to the kitchens where Mr. Whittle was chatting with Lilly about the state of the upstairs parlor which had in recent days been subjected to a small leak in the roof.  It was fixed but the furniture needed to be arranged and Whittle, being himself, had memorized the previous order of things.

“Mr. Whittle!” Aymes cried out, his shock apparent at seeing the Beta so suddenly.  Gyles had forgotten, of course, that the Omega should have seen the man every time he had made his way into town and, as Whittle had told him, was likely under the impression that all the other denizens of the settlement were—that Whittle was the master of his estate.  “What are you doing here?”

“Oh dear,” the Beta frowned.  “Good morning, Mr. Morehill.  You’re a bit far from home, aren’t you?  Are you alright?”

“I…” he looked up at Gyles for a moment.  “I suppose I must be…now. Mr. Whittle, you’ve an estate close by, do you not?  I should hate to impose upon this stranger and if you were to have any room for me, I would surely stay out of the way until I was able to find a purpose, I—”

Whittle put out his hands to stop the little one and then gave him a soft and placating little smile.  “Oh dear, Mr. Morehill, it seems I’ve done you a great disservice.  You see, I’ve never told anyone in Haverton that I was the master of an estate.  That was an assumption I simply did not care to address.  You see, in all reality, I’m a _servant_ at _this_ estate.”

Gyles paused for a moment to watch the ripple of emotions across the Omega’s expression and before the boy could any anything further, he procured some cold meats, and cheeses from his own goats.  “Mr. Whittle has done more for me in Haverton by not correcting that assumption than he ever could have done otherwise.  You understand the necessity of it, don’t you Aymes?”  Whittle cocked a brow at his familiarity but Gyles ignored it.

“You’ve…you’ve tricked us.  Them…”

“Haverton would never do business with the estate otherwise,” Gyles replied.

Aymes took the offered meats and sat down at the wooden table the servants normally ate at, staring at the food with an odd wistfulness.  “Is there nothing in my life that is not so easily torn asunder?  Is everything so fragile?”

Gyles sat across from him, reaching forward and brushing back his hair. “Life itself is fragile, though we do find support from time to time.  Lilly, could you have a room readied for our guest and hot bath drawn?  He’s had a trying morning.”

“A trying _week_ , I should assume,” Whittle added.

“Indeed,” the Alpha agreed.  “Whittle, could you give us a moment?”

“Do you think that wise, sir?”

“Whittle.”

Both Lilly and Whittle made themselves scarce, leaving the two of them, Alpha and Omega, sitting across from each other as Aymes picked at the meats and cheese, eating slowly while his sour scent wafted toward the open windows.

Gyles sighed heavily.  This conversation was not something he had ever prepared himself to make and the strategy as to how he was to bring it up was beyond him.  He remained silent for far too long and the Omega spoke first.

“You are trying to tell me that you cannot keep me here.  I know it…I will be gone soon.  I swear to you, I will not overstay.”

“No,” Gyles told him, cutting off any more that nonsense.  “That is certainly not what I’m trying to tell you.  What it is…well… You’re twenty years old and you’ve an education in a rather small community of Betas.”

“Betas?”

“They don’t call themselves that, but yes.  You’ve a very limited vision of a wider world and your settlement has done severe damage to you in keeping secrets from you.”

“I’ve no secrets kept from me,” Aymes told him seriously.  “Every teaching I’ve known is from God himself and—”

“And that is exactly what I mean,” Gyles told him, his tone sharper. “Your truth is not the truth of communities around you.”

“We are an example,” Aymes explained, his eyes glazed as if he could no longer be truly convinced of his own words.  “We exist to show the others how a moral system is better than an immoral one.”

“Morality is not inherent.  What of the cultures where your God does not exist?”

His brows twitched downward and his lip curled.  “There is no such thing.”

“I assure you,” he said with a small chuckle, “There is no Indian who, prior to these colonies, was acquainted with your God.”

“That is not to say that God does not exist.”

“I will not argue the existence of God.  I will ask why then God made it his mission to only tell a small number of peoples his truth and leave the rest to be conquered or forced to believe?  Why then should God put shackles of _obligation_ upon those who would spread his message and shackles of _eternal damnation_ upon those who live and die without ever having heard such a message?  You don’t have to answer these questions, Aymes.  They are merely for you to wonder about as I tell you this next thing and please don’t think me cruel for having told you.”

Aymes was already tearing up, moisture in his eyes threatening to spill over as his trembling fingers held bits of cheese he could not eat.

“You are not a Beta.  You are not like anyone else in Haverton and that is _not your fault._ ”

His voice was thin and weak.  “It is my sin.”

“It is nothing of the sort.  Whether or not you are a Beta has naught to do with your actions or thoughts upon this earth.  If it were, there would not be so many disappointed souls who found themselves as one thing when everyone else assumed they would be another.  If it were based upon thoughts or actions alone then it would be possible to _will_ oneself to be a Beta or not.  What sin have you committed, Aymes?  In plain English, tell me.”

“I…” he was at a loss.  “It must have been…”

“No. Don’t tell me what your minister told you it was, tell me yourself. Tell me what you did.  What you thought.”

He gave a very small shake of his head as his mouth opened and he could not say.

“Lust, Aymes?”

“It must have been.”

“It does not have to have been.  If the world is to tear apart every one of your assumptions of it today then let this be another to tear open and lay bare.   _You are not to blame for this._ ”

He was quiet for a long time, staring at the table and swallowing over and over.  Eventually, his courage gathered and his scent lightened a small bit and he looked up toward Gyles with a pitiful emerald gaze. “If I am not a Beta…what everyone else in Haverton is…then…tell me, please.   _What am I?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gyles is so doomed for this cutie.


	7. Chapter 7

“You’re an Omega,” Gyles told him plainly, the word meaning absolutely nothing when it came to Aymes’s ears.  “It is nothing you could have changed and there are a fine number of gentlemen in England with that very distinction.”

“That very sin.”

A heavy sigh erupted from his chest.  “Will it ever simply _be_? Does everything have to stem from sin?”

“Knowledge and life outside of Eden…everything from then to now stems from sin.”  He stared at this man, kind and yet so _faithless_ …how could two such things be separate?  His memories floated back to how coldly Reverend Shelton had looked when he had laid helpless in bed, beset by his lust.  At the moment he needed kindness more than ever, the man of God had shown him none.  Now, muddy at the side of the road and lost in a world he did not know, he found that very kindness in a Godless man.  “Mmmgh,” he groaned at himself, covering his eyes and whispering.  “’ _Then a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came near unto him, and when he saw him, he had compassion on him._ ‘”

Gyles’s heavy brows were tight.  “It is but morning and you look as if you could sleep until the morrow. Once your bath is prepared and your room ready, you are welcome to rest.  You may take your supper in your room if it pleases you and you will be a guest in my house.”

“I cannot do nothing.”

“Then I will dictate my letters to you and you may write them.”  His single functioning eye was so kind that it was difficult to look into but Aymes did so anyhow.  He would have been strikingly handsome had he not been wounded so terribly with a well-defined jaw and his penetrating gaze.  It did not seem that such a man considered fashion terribly important though it didn’t seem to matter for his trade.  If Mr. Whittle were to provide the face of his transactions…

Aymes felt his cheeks grow pink.  “Do you do any of your own business or does Mr. Whittle travel to every town?”

“I will go here and there but Whittle is far more tactful than I and far more approachable.  I’m certain you understand why.”

“He is less intimidating, surely.”

Gyles smiled.  “Do I intimidate you, Aymes?  It was not my goal.”

“Yes.  But it is only because you are a powerful man.  In many ways.  But you cannot be so powerful as to make me feel afraid.”

“Good.  I’m glad.  I should never want to frighten you.”

Lilly poked her head back into the room and announced that the room and bath were ready for Aymes and Gyles stood, giving Aymes a small bow before he left him in the care of the servant.  She was a sturdy-looking woman though by the scent of her, he deduced that she must have been what Gyles had called a “Beta.”  The room she led him to was luxuriant in all the ways that his home had not been.  The mattress and counterpane on the bed appeared impossibly soft and welcoming and the rug beneath his shoes appeared quite expensive with trickling floral designs that he could not imagine could be fashioned with such colors among the people of the colonies.  Exotic and beautiful, the whole of the room seemed bright and cheerful and even welcoming.  Lilly took his jacket with deft fingers and he jumped a little when she did so, unused to being undressed by someone else.

“It’s alright, Mr. Morehill, should you like me to help you?  I know it must be odd for you to have someone assist you.  Mr. Whittle has informed me of your austere upbringing.  If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, it would not be at all difficult to help you should you decide upon it.”

“N-No…I’ll manage.”  He could not imagine at all having anyone about while he was nude and especially not a woman.  “These clothes…”  He looked over toward a small, neatly folded pile sitting on the chest at the end of the bed.

“They’re some of my cousin’s.  They might not fit you perfectly but he is around your size.  He was only here to visit for a small while so I don’t have a whole set, only a shirt, and some trousers.  Until we can wash yours, I’m afraid they’ll have to do.”

He nodded.  “Alright.  Thank you, Miss.”

She curtsied.  “If that is all, Mr. Morehill.”

“Yes.”

She left him and he waited a short time, uncertain about becoming naked in an unfamiliar room.  When he finally gathered the courage, he peeled off his clothes which had already become saturated in his bittersweet scent—the evidence of everything he loathed about himself.  He folded them and placed them aside before he climbed into the bath and hissed through his teeth at how wonderful the heated water felt on his flesh.  It was rare for him to have a full bath and surely this man, Gyles, had to be exceedingly rich to have a full bath that could be filled with hot water at a whim.  When he was immersed within it, he gave an exultant sigh and closed his eyes, letting his body stretch in the water while his head rested upon the side.

That he should be transformed into something so decidedly loathsome only to find himself enjoying the temptation of material comforts…it seemed a slope he was fully ready to tumble down.  He played with the surface of the water and brought his toes up to that barrier, the tub clearly made for a man Gyles’s size rather than Aymes.  He determined he could not reach the end, even when he was stretched out fully and the discovery tickled him greatly.

Gyles’s words came back to him.   _An Alpha can hardly handle it._  Was that what the man was?  Taller, larger, stronger than any man Aymes had ever met.  His scent strong and beguiling and rich with earthy, spicy tones.   _Alpha_. What did it mean?  What was the purpose of such a distinction?  What sort of a sin must a man commit to have been blessed so thoroughly by God to smell so damned good and show himself to be the pinnacle of physical power?  What if, Aymes asked himself, such a thing was not the result of a sin at all but was evidence of the Lord’s favor?

_That cannot be.  Despite that he has claimed his estate has a minister, he has blasphemed and denied God’s word several times since I’ve arrived.  He cannot be favored, he is practically a heathen._ His mind turned dark.   _And you, Aymes?  What about you? The perfect viceless boy with a sin so hidden that even you could not see it?  Perhaps this man is a heathen with a heart so pure he’s been blessed without knowing._

He crunched down on that thought by dunking his head under the surface of the water.  No.  It had to be simply some other sort of manifestation of sin.  Whatever “Alpha” was, it was most certainly just as much a curse as “Omega.”

He washed himself with the soap provided to him and lingered a bit despite his mind’s insistence that to do so would harm him in such a way as to spoil him.  But still, he deserved a treat, he thought defiantly.  He had been robbed, muddied, and left on the road banished from all he knew.  If there was a Samaritan who would take care of him at his darkest hour then he should be so gracious as to allow for it at the very least.  Eventually, he stood and dried himself, dressing then in the shirt and trousers that Lilly had brought for him.  Despite that he was sorely tempted to see just how soft that mattress and counterpane could be, he was unaccustomed to being lazy midday and so he donned his shoes and hoped that he would not be seen by too many people with his throat missing its kerchief. The trousers had come with suspenders and he fiddled with the length of them even as he wandered down the hall to find the stairs he'd come up.

“Are you in search of something, Mr. Morehill?” he heard Whittle ask from the bottom landing.

“No…I merely did not wish to be confined without use, Mr. Whittle.  Should you have something that I might do for you this afternoon?”

“Something you might do for me?  Gracious, boy, can you not simply rest when it is the request of the master of the house?”

“I rest when I am required, no more.”

Whittle gave him a patience stare before he motioned for him to follow. “Very well.  You may meet the horses then.”

He was led outside where the sun was playing with the clouds, the brightness of the day subdued for moments and alternating in intensity as he and Whittle strolled down a dirt and gravel path leading toward a large set of stables the likes of which Aymes had never before seen.  Twenty to thirty horses could perhaps be housed inside such a structure and he saw multiple pastures with frolicking animals attached.  Mr. Whittle had been the source for nearly all the horseflesh in Haverton and to see now that it had truly come from Gyles and from such a sprawling estate was overwhelming.

“You smell vexed, Mr. Morehill.”

“I apologize.  I had no idea that the operation was so vast.”

“We are the foremost horse breeders in New England, sir.  Occasionally, word is sent from far and away for horses to be delivered and as yet, we have had no complaints over the sturdiness or quickness of our stock.”  He motioned out toward one of the pastures where a mare was grazing with her foal.  “That is our newest addition.  His sire is a beastly fellow though he’s pulled through in extreme cases. There was one in a terrible storm come in from the coast and the lower pasture was flooding quickly.  The steed quite easily aided Mr. Falborn in securing his panicked mares and brought them all to safety.”

“Incredible,” Aymes murmured.  “He will be very valuable then.”

“Mr. Falborn has determined he will not sell him.  This one will likely have a kinder temperament…or…hopefully he will.  His mother is much more loving.”  Whittle brought him into the shade of the stables where the rich smell of horses came to him and stung at his nose.  “Their names are beside their quarters and take care you do not get yourself nipped.  The white one is the worst of them so do avoid him, if you will.”

“What is his name?”

“Prince, though naming him thus has done him a severe disservice.  His ego is far too large.”

Aymes smiled, wiping at his tired eyes and wondering when it could be his turn to laugh again.  “And what has the master determined shall be the name of his progeny?”

“He has not yet decided.”

Aymes took a small while to peer into the enclosures for each horse, careful not to get too near to those who were overly eager to see him without curiosity easily detectable in their ears.  He was nosed a few times and prodded with soft lips, the collar of his shirt tugged by searching mouths hungry for snacks.  A few of the mares took a liking to him enough for Whittle to impart a bizarre bit of trivia.

“Ah. They like Omegas.  Something sweet for them to snuff at.”

“Mr. Whittle?” he asked, his stomach tightening.

“Yes?”

He looked over at the man, watching him scribbling on some parchment that was tacked to the wall.  “What does it mean…to be an Omega?”

“Oh dear.  Well.  There are far too many ways to answer that question but I suppose I should answer it in the most logical fashion possible. It means that you’re small, fair, and you can—”

“Oh, Whittle,” came Gyles’s voice from a nearby doorway.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were showing the little one about.”

“Indeed, sir.  He was restless so I thought I might show him the horses.  I understand you’re quite busy today but I’ve got to make a run to Yuletown this afternoon and…”

“Say no more,” Gyles smiled as he looked down at Aymes, his eyes clearly examining his throat which was bare without his neckcloth.  “Should you like to learn how to mend a gate?”

“Mend a gate?  I should happy to learn anything I can from you, sir,” he replied softly, hoping that his state of dress was not overly disrespectful in such a house.

“That’s the spirit,” Whittle beamed, nicking him with a finger under his chin.  “You’ve always been a good boy and you’re bound to stay that way, aren’t you?”  The man peered upward at Gyles with something of a meaningful expression but what it meant, Aymes couldn’t be certain. Almost as if he were asking his master to agree with him.

Gyles seemed to take the hint.  “Well that’s settled then.  How about we look into some supplies and then we can get right to it?”  He took Aymes to fetch some nails and a bit of cut wood along with a small saw and they set off.  Most of the walk was shaded and Gyles didn’t seem in the mood to make conversation so Aymes stayed quiet.  When they reached the gate, the _Alpha_ set down the things and reached into his pocket for the nails which he handed to Aymes.  “I’ve done the measurements but knowing me and my terrible eyesight, I cut them a little longer than I thought they ought to be.  This way we shouldn’t get out here and have them too short.  Rather too long than too short, right?”

“Indeed, that makes sense,” he provided, already wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.  It irritated him that he could smell himself, that sickly sweetness rising to his nose the warmer he got. He wished that it was winter.  At least then he would not be subjected to it so much that he felt he might be sick from it.

Gyles worked quickly and obviously had no real need for any of Aymes’s help but explained what he did thoroughly enough to show him how it was done with the fewest nails possible.  In fact, when they were finished, due to the notches that were strategically placed by the man’s strong hands and abilities, they had used only two of the ten that Aymes was holding.  “That should do it.  And it should hold that damned set of cattle who seem intent to break it…at least for a month.”  It had only taken them probably an hour to assemble the two lengths of the gate that had been broken by the wayward bovine and even then, the two of them were quite hot.  Gyles’s attractive and yet vexing scent was mixing in the air with Aymes’s, nullifying the bitterness that seemed part and parcel with it and forming something distinctively _likable_.

Perturbed, Aymes rubbed at his neck until Gyles pulled a small kerchief from his pocket and then looked at it.  “I know you don’t quite understand the meaning of all of this nonsense, but should you use this to mop yourself, you should know that you’ll have my scent on you.”

“Your scent is far more agreeable than mine, Mr. Falborn.  I fail to see how that should dissuade me.”

His brow lifted.  “Unfortunately, scent is a bit of a sensitive subject when it comes to unmated pairs of Alphas and Omegas.”

“Un…unmated?”

“We’re not married, you and I.”

Aymes scoffed.  “Of course we’re not married.  We’re both men.  That would be ridiculous.”

Gyles smiled and was for only a moment at a loss for words.  “You see, Aymes, Alphas and Omegas can be married.  Male, female, it doesn’t matter.  Alphas and Omegas were…made to be.  At least, that is what they say, if you take any stock in it.  You can’t marry a woman as you know them, Aymes.  Not in this world.  It is going to be difficult for you to understand, I know.  But know this.  If you are to put this to your throat, there are some who may misunderstand about you and I.”

“Misunderstand…”

“My servants, they will not say anything to you and in fact, they may understand that it is quite innocent, that I have given this to you under the circumstances.  But anyone else…if you were to smell like me…”

Aymes regarded the kerchief warily.  “You mean to say that they will think us… _betrothed?_ I cannot fathom it.”

“Perhaps not betrothed but certainly they will believe that my intentions toward you are more than what they are.  It would be good for you if you would prefer my protection.  My scent alone would keep any visiting Alphas from trying for your affections.”

“My affections?  And what is to stop you from trying for my affections? What _are_ your intentions toward me, Mr. Falborn?”  He could feel his heart beginning to beat harder in his chest while he stared at the kerchief, white and unassuming in the cheery daylight.  “Can it be true that though you claim Alphas and Omegas are made for each other, you are merely being kind?”  Could it be true?  Could he trust a Godless man?

“I’ve told you nothing but the truth.  Nothing will change should you tell me you don’t want my scent.  My intentions toward you are to make certain that no harm befalls you while you are in my care.  I’ve no intent to defile you or treat you inappropriately.  As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Morehill, you are a gentleman and a guest in my house. You come from a respectable family and you are not to be toyed with. As vulnerable as you are, knowing nothing about your own sex, you have been quite fortunate so far not to have stumbled upon someone less honorable than I.”  He stuffed his kerchief back into his breast pocket.

“Wait…you say that your scent can protect me.”

“Yes. If that is what you want.  Perhaps you’d like to mull that over a bit.  Maybe someday.  Not now.”

Aymes couldn’t deny how prudent the suggestion to wait sounded but still, he thought, the combination of their scents was far more pleasant than his alone.  And if what Reverend Shelton had said was true—that Aymes’s hidden sin was that he was secretly lusting for men…Gyles Falborn was not the worst man to lust for.  Aymes looked him over and didn’t care a whit that the Alpha was watching him do so.  He was strong, handsome, could most certainly provide protection if that’s what Aymes wanted.  He had not the patience to consider for himself the sexual side of a coupling with him and so it was on these grounds that he determined that to take his scent would be the worse for him. “Alright.  I will wait…perhaps someday.  It has not even been a day and I have been bombarded with all of this…I cannot pile it atop everything else.”

“A fair judgment.  Come along then, little one.  We’ll get you a fresh cloth to wipe yourself with back at the house.”

He followed close behind and noted upon their approach that a flash of blue marked the presence of a girl walking among the fruit trees near the drive.  She was examining an almost-ripened apple hanging from one of the lower branches when she turned to look at the both of them, a twitch to her upper lip that betrayed her discontent.  She barely even looked at Aymes before she spoke.  “Good evening, Mr. Falborn.  For all the petulant nonsense you gave over taking in strays, you seem to have become a kennel for them, haven’t you?”

Gyles ignored her barb.  “Lady Amanda, this is Mr. Morehill.  He’s not to be teased.”

Her scoff was decidedly feminine and with a flick of a fan in her hand, her scent was spread in the still air, a noxious perfume that was both floral and sour from her irritation.  “Are you certain he should be safe from teasing?  I certainly wasn’t.”  She looked at Aymes fully for the first time.  “Beware, Omega.  He’ll have you married off and out of his house in no time lest you put your fate in his hands.  Take care.  He’s a brute of an Alpha.”

“That’s enough,” Gyles replied calmly.  “Perhaps, Lady Amanda, you would prefer that instead of a marriage in the colonies, I make certain you are on the next ship back to England?”

Her lips immediately buttoned and she drew up, affronted while her scent spiked with something downright awful.  Turning back toward the house, she stomped off.

“I apologize.  Her family sent her to me with the thought that I might find her suitable for marriage and if not, find her a future here…that is, an Alpha.”

“She is an Omega as well then.”  Aymes’s brows furrowed.  “My experiences with others of…of my kind have not been satisfactory to me.  Am I to become so?”

“If you were not already, you shall not become so, I assure you,” he replied.

“I understand.  Thank you…Alpha.  That is what I should call you, is it not?”

The man turned his head down and passed him a warm gaze and a genuine smile.  “You may.  Or you may call me Gyles.”

“You are the master of this house.  It would be improper.”

“I am the master of this house.  Whatever I say is improper is improper. And I say you may call me Gyles.”

Aymes felt a strange tingling in his chest and his fingers that was not quite nervousness.  “Alright.  Gyles then.  Forever, I suppose.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading Chapter 7! Leave a comment if you feel like it!


	8. Chapter 8

The summer was warmer than normal and as Aymes did not have a proper wardrobe and likely would have fainted from the heat had he been subjected to one anyway, he was ambling about on the estate for days with that sultry and irresistible scent trailing behind wherever he went.  The first time he accompanied Whittle on a trip to one of the neighboring towns, he borrowed a neck cloth from Whittle’s collection and washed his breeches as best he could so that he mightn’t look too terribly uncouth.  Gyles found it all quite adorable, watching the boy navigate his new home over the course of the afternoons.  When he returned from town with a new fitted waistcoat, a shirt, and even a little hat, Gyles couldn’t help but feel at least somewhat disappointed that he would no longer have the pleasant view of the little one’s bare throat whenever he wished.

As the call of the bugs and birds floated across the landscape, Aymes tried to help everyone as best he could when they would let him.  Whittle was the most pleased by his attentions, allowing him to follow behind and take his notations for him, teaching him anything he wished to learn. When Whittle was unavailable, Gyles had caught him in the kitchens assisting the chef in making bread and even with Lilly and the others helping with the laundry.  He scuttled around continuously looking for things to occupy his time and his attention while Lady Amanda lounged and fanned herself in the shade, pulling up the laced hem of her skirts just an inch or so too far whenever Gyles might have passed by.

He noticed.  He wouldn’t have been an Alpha if he didn’t notice such things.  She flashed her pretty neck and her pretty ankles and fanned around her scent as though things like that should have made him unable to resist her.  She was lazing about on a blanket in the grass and under the shade of a large elm, watching Aymes trailing along behind Whittle as they walked along the border of the pastures.  Gyles happened to be strolling by on his way to check on the growing colt when she spoke to him.

“Useful, isn’t he?  Rather like a little servant, though you don’t keep him in the servant quarters.  I’d be happy to give him a proper place should Lilly ever teach him to mend.”

The Alpha lifted his brow and stared down at her with his good eye.  “In his community, he was a hard-working young gentleman.  That there is no traditional nobility here does not mean that everyone is a servant.”

She gave him a smug expression.  “He certainly acts as though that were his calling.”

“He acts like a boy who’s used to a practical life.”  Gyles made to take another step but paused when she spoke again.

“You sound like you might consider him for your bride.  I’ve heard about him, you know.  The servants chat.  He’s very pious.  Absolutely devoted to God.  Doesn’t know anything about attracting an Alpha.  I pity the poor dear.”

“Of course you do.  You’ll be happy to note that Mr. Jerard should arrive by this evening.”

“Mr. Jerard?” she asked.

“Your suitor.”

She drew up, her sweetened Omega scent gaining sour notes before it was whisked away from him by a forgiving breeze.  The elm branches swayed above, sending glimmering dapples over her affronted visage.  “My suitor, indeed!  I’ll make it so that he’ll never speak to you again, Alpha!” She struggled to stand.

“You should be kind to him.  He’s a handsome gentleman and he’ll save you from your return trip to England.”

Her face grew pink her outrage but before she could offer a retort, Gyles left her to fume.  It was about time for his luncheon and he had already made his plans with Lilly that he was to take his meal along with Aymes in the orchard.  Of course, the Omega didn’t quite yet know that this was planned so all that was left was to convince him to accept the invitation.

He found him taking a rare moment of rest, sitting atop an empty crate and playing with a kitten from one of the barn cat litters.  Gyles regarded him for a few moments, unnoticed.  How soft he looked.  How perfectly compassionate and playful with the tiny little kitten in his hands, rubbing over the triangular ears and smiling over the tiny mewls. Eventually, the breeze came up behind him and carried his strong scent to Aymes' little nose and so the Omega noticed him.

“Master Gyles,” he stood.

“How many times will I remind you that it is _only_ Gyles?  You are not my staff.”

Aymes gave him a measuring stare that almost seemed the slightest bit exasperated. “You are the master of this house.  I am a guest.  That you are one who does not hold to propriety does not mean that I cannot.  I agreed that I should call you Gyles but you made no mention of reducing your status.”

He sighed.  “I struggle with you, Omega.”

“And I with you, Master Alpha.”

Gyles couldn’t help but smile, easily tickled by the stubborn little thing.  “Have you found enough to occupy your mind here, Aymes?”

“It has been sufficient.  I have learned very much in the days I have spent here.”

“I see you’ve found a moment to rest.”

“I will find Mr. Whittle once he is finished with his current task…”

Gyles chuckled. “That was not a probing for you to become busy.  It was more that I was hoping that you would take some time to lunch with me in the orchard.  Forgive my impertinence but I’ve already told Lilly that you would be joining me and so the picnic is set for two.  Should you refuse, I will be forced to eat two meals for my pride.”

Aymes smirked at him.  “You tempt me to refuse you only for my humor.”

“How uncharitable,” Gyles joked.

He put down the kitten gingerly, making certain that all of the tiny paws were solid on the ground before he let go and watched the animal scamper off to find its mother who was lounging not so far off.  When he stood, he brushed himself off.  “A picnic, you say?  I should be happy to.”

His guts tingled happily and he could smell the sparkle in his own Alpha scent that came from such a small but important little pleasure as being accepted.  He put out his arm but Aymes either didn’t notice or ignored him and that tingle faded only a small bit as the Omega passed him.  Coming to his side and measuring his steps as not to pass, Gyles walked with him.  “It’s encouraging to note that you’ve found purpose here.”

“I shouldn’t stay long,” Aymes replied shortly.

“Nonsense.  You should stay as long as you like.”

His lips thinned as he walked through the cut grass toward the shade of the orchard. “I’ve heard that you are to find a suitor for Lady Amanda. Understand that I have only overheard such a thing.  She does not speak to me.”

“You may count yourself fortunate.  She is not always the most pleasant of conversational partners.”

Aymes frowned at him but ignored the slight against the Lady.  “I’ve been nervous, you see.  I’ve had some frank conversations with Mr. Whittle and I remain anxious about what Lady Amanda had told me when first we met. That you would find me a suitor.”

“She was placed in my care for that very reason, Aymes,” Gyles told him as they reached the blanket and basket that held their lunch.  He motioned for the Omega to seat himself first and when he did, he sank to the blanket as well.  He opened the basket and retrieved the dishes and cold meats and fruit.  “You were not placed with me and there were no instructions for how you should be dealt with.  Your future is your own.  That I am your ruling Alpha is merely by location and circumstance.  By law, I may have a right to marry you off but by my own standard, I’ve no claim to your future at all.  In fact, if you were to get up and wander off, I’d likely have no legal recourse to secure you back to my estate.  You’re entirely free to do whatever it is you wish and you’ve no reason to be nervous about my finding you a suitor.”

“I cannot stay here indefinitely—”

“Why not?”

He sputtered as he watched Gyles serve him out his lunch.  “That’s absurd.  I don’t belong here.”

“From what I understand, Omega, you belong here as much as you belong anywhere else.  I’m the master of this estate and if I tell you that you belong here, then you do.”

“Ah, you’ve said as much before and yet I’m wary.”

“You don’t trust me.  Even after Whittle has sung my praises?”

The little one paused for a few moments, munching on his slices of apple thoughtfully.  “He thinks the world of you.”

“And I think the world of him.”

“A curious thing to say about ones servants.”

“Why?  He is not beneath me as a man.  Perhaps I was raised to think in such a way when I was in England but here, there’s no point in it.”

“Lady Amanda—”

“A pox on what she thinks.  Spoiled little maiden.”  He ate, glowering down at his food and grumbling over how poorly she’d acted since she’d arrived.

“Anyone should be able to see that she’d like to marry you,” Aymes murmured. “You’re from England and so is she…perhaps her tastes will change the way yours have.”

“I very much doubt that.  She’s a girl who takes for granted that she will have what she wishes.  I wish I could spare you from it but you should prepare yourself for the most selfish tantrum you will ever see tonight.  Her suitor is arriving and hopefully we will dine with him.”

“Yes, Mr. Whittle told me of a Mr. Jerard.”

“Indeed.  He’s a wealthy young man with a decent shipping business on the coast.  He’s got a fleet at his command and a good set of hands and minds.  He’ll make a good mate for any Omega looking to settle and the dowry I’ve prepared for her would give him good money for investment for the coming year.”

“She is not happy, I suppose.”

“Of course not. I am not titled but my blood is noble.  She cannot fathom the prospect of a mateship with a man who was lowborn.”

“Like me.”

“She couldn’t marry you anyway, Aymes.”

He nodded, frowning as if he had to constantly remind himself of the fact. “Yes.  Right so.  I cannot seem to keep my head wrapped around this Omega business.”

Gyles let loose a small chuckle and touched at his own forehead.  “Are you not reminded constantly?  I am.”

“How is that? After so many days, it is as though I’ve gotten used to this new scent and I no longer notice it.  I forget so readily that you’ve told me that it is natural in these parts of the world for a man to lay with another man.  Should you forget, that is something that God has insisted is a sin.”

Gyles pinched the bridge of his nose and repeated softly, “Ah…I struggle with you, Omega.”

“And I with you, Alpha.”  He popped another apple slice into his mouth and crunched it.  “I find it unlikely that I shall ever stumble over love in my lifetime.  All this time I was considering the merits of a wife and delaying my marriage and now I find myself at a loss as you say I’ll never have such a thing.”

“Should you find a sweet Alpha girl, she could make you a fine wife,” he provided, “though you would find that your methods of copulation should be quite different than you imagined.”

“Don’t be lewd,” he scolded, his expression that of mild irritation.

“Why not? You’ve got to be curious.”

His cheeks were suddenly very pink when his flustered glare told Gyles that of course he _was_ but then again, he was not prepared to hear it.  His lower lip trembled and it was difficult to tell if it was the result of offense or shock.

“Forgive me,” Gyles laughed.  “It gives me far too much amusement to see you so perturbed.  You see, you’re such a proper lad.  You must admit that to see you at a loss might bring me pleasure.”

“You are outrageous, sir!”

“Oh, do calm yourself.  If Lady Amanda is not allowed to tease you, there must be someone who has the right.”

“I suppose you fancy yourself the man to do it.”  He was grumbling and adorable and eying the wine that Gyle began to pour.  When his glass was ready, he began to drink it, taking prudent sips in succession until it was mostly gone.  “Well…on with it.  So I should not have to hear more later.”

“No, no…”

“I insist,” he snapped, finishing his glass and pouting even as Gyles filled it again.

“Fine then, if you are so keen to be teased.  Have you ever been kissed, Aymes?”

His big eyes flashed wide up at him.  “I beg pardon?”

“Kissed.  I know you’ve lived your life sheltered by the shadow of the church but surely when you were younger, you stole away to kiss a girl or two. It’s only natural.”

The Omega scoffed. “Natural!  For whom?”

“So that is a ‘no’ then.  You poor boy.  Twenty and never even kissed at such an age.  There are some Omegas who’ve had whole sets of children by now.”

“Well I am obviously not typical as I find myself very much nicer than any of the lot I’ve met so far.”  He took a less prudent sip of his wine, nearly gulping at it.

“Oh?  Do you think yourself better?”

“That is not what I said.”

“Then what did you mean to say, Omega?” he asked, adjusting himself so that he might get closer, to reduce the space between them by inches until he could fill his nose with that intoxicatingly beautiful scent and smell nothing else.

“What I _mean_ to say,” Aymes explained, taking another gulp of his wine, “is that I often think of myself as I was, rather than how I am.  What I am…”  he frowned.  “That is…I don’t pity myself for having never kissed.  I imagine that it is a temptation that would require me to repent.  I hate knowingly having done things that would reduce my character.”

“You think that kissing should reduce your character?”

“I do,” he stated, finishing his second glass while the cloudiness of the alcohol came over his eyes.

“And what of _being_ kissed?  There is a difference, you know.”  Gyles chanced a glance down at Aymes' lips and regretted having done it immediately.

The Omega seemed to sharpen, aware suddenly of how close the Alpha had come to him and he backed away.  He filled his mouth with apple slices and awkwardly blushed, keeping his eyes from meeting Gyles’s.

“Ah.  I’ve spooked you.  I apologize, I hadn’t meant it.”

Aymes swallowed and his face appeared pained.  “You have told me that Alphas and Omegas are…are meant to be.  But I cannot think of you in such a manner.”

“I understand.” He did, but that didn’t mean he wanted to.  Those petal pink lips and his innocent charm was far too alluring to leave be.  It was exceptionally unfortunate that he should have come from such a heinous village with such a penchant for destroying that which made the fairer sex so extraordinary.  Their individual thought, their independent stubbornness—it was all so often utilized poorly but with Aymes, he fancied that the boy would have made a feisty lover had he not been so brutalized by his religion.

“I should go back to Mr. Whittle…”

“I will walk you.”

It appeared at the first as though the man would reject the offer but as he stood and wobbled a bit, he allowed for it though he still did not bring himself to take Gyles’s offered arm.

Nonplussed about his luncheon with the beautiful Aymes Morehill, Gyles distracted himself with the horses for the rest of the afternoon until he was compelled to wash up and take a few moments to read before he was called by Lilly to greet his guest in front hall.  

Mr. Jerard, divested of his dusty traveling cloak, was a strong and comely Alpha and he put his hand out to Gyles immediately.  “Mr. Falborn, it’s wonderful to see you again.”  Born as a commoner in London, the man had come to the colonies as a lad and had seized his opportunities wherever they came, clawing his way maddeningly to the top until he had found himself fortunate enough to be the proprietor of his own shipping business that saw voyages all the way around the world, making small fortunes with every trip to the Orient.  “I suppose it must be some sort of a shock to you that I’ve remained unmated but thanks to you, I could remedy that soon.”

“I warn you, Remi, she’s not so easily won.”

“What has ever been easily won in my life?” he asked with a grin.  “Tell me that our supper is soon, I’m famished from the road.”

“I believe it is, come talk with me about your latest pursuits while we wait out the last minutes.”  He led his guest to the parlor and was surprised to find Aymes sitting upon the settee with a bit of parchment to sketch.

“Pardon me,” Aymes murmured, gathering himself up.

“Oh no, little one,” Jerard told him, putting out a hand as though to stop him. “Please do not get up.  I’ve no wish to disturb you.”  He made a deep bow that was very formal as Aymes sat tense and uncertain.  “I am Remi Jerard and it is a fine pleasure to meet you.”

Gyles felt his brows tighten.  “Remi, this is Mr. Aymes Morehill.  He is also in my care.”

Jerard’s eyes never left the Omega.  “Dear me, you are simply overflowing with the little creatures, aren’t you.  Any more I should know about?”

His voice was flat.  “Not yet.”

Jerard grinned at Aymes.  “Tell me, little one, has the brute treated you well?  I bet he’s spoiled the lot of you with his wines and his cheese. Gracious, you must have the run of this place.  Tell me you have him wrapped around your pretty fingers.”

Aymes’s face was colored high on his cheekbones and it seemed he was speechless.  At last, Gyles thought, there was someone else who could tease him beyond his words.

“Oh dear,” Gyles chuckled, “you’ve scandalized him already.  Here I thought you might have made the rank of 'gentleman’ and you’ve gone and forced poor Mr. Morehill from his sense.”

He laughed, clearly tickled.  “Tell me, Mr. Morehill, you’ll be joining us for dinner, won’t you?  Tell me you’ll make him,” he said to Gyles. “He simply must.”

The Alpha felt a strange twinge in his patience that he’d never felt before: a possessiveness that overcame him.  Still, he squashed it and looked to Aymes.  “You’re most certainly invited, Aymes.  Will you come?”

The Omega swallowed.  “If…If it pleases you.”

“Grand!” Jerard barked.

It was just then that Lilly came to collect them for supper and they turned from the parlor.  Jerard spoke low, in only just above a whisper as they strolled to the dining room together, his tone conspiratorial. “Gracious, Gyles, you hadn’t mentioned that you had come to care for such a stunning little beauty.  Surely if Lady Amanda is to be so hard-won, I should try my luck with the other if you’ve no designs upon him yourself.  I could beg of you to say you do not for he is exactly my taste.”

An odd emotion rippled through him and he stopped in his tracks, the other Alpha staring at him with a sparkle of hope in his eyes and the fearlessness of his youth.

“Gyles?” Jerard asked quietly.

“No,” he managed, clearing his throat and masking his possessiveness as it came.  He could not lay any sort of claim over Aymes though he wished that he could.  If he did say that he had designs upon the boy, Jerard would respect his boundaries, but in all fairness, he could not state that he had solid plans at all.  Merely conspiring to kiss the boy in the orchard was hardly the hallmark of an intention to court.  “I’ve no current designs upon him.”

“Spectacular,” Jerard beamed, turning into the dining room.

Following slowly, Gyles could sense only the first tickle of regret and knew that certainly there would be much more to come for he already felt the fool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Gyles, you **fool.**_


	9. Chapter 9

Mr. Jerard had taken Aymes completely by surprise.  His familiarity and enthusiasm in his speech had put him immediately on edge.  There was a shamelessness to him that Aymes had not quite experienced before and to say the least it was unnerving.  Tendrils of anxiety tangled around with his intestines and he was struck by the notion that he should do all in his power not to meet the man’s gaze fully during their supper together.  Surely as he was intended for Lady Amanda, he should spend most of his time pursuing her, he thought hopefully.

When he sat, however, he immediately noticed that Lady Amanda was nowhere to be found.  His stomach further tightened when Gyles made the announcement that she had sent word that she was ill and would not be coming.  This was certainly not what Aymes had thought when the Alpha had told him to prepare for a selfish tantrum.  He had expected something along the lines of dramatic wit or even a good deal of yelling that would have had him reeling from the excitement of it all—not that he was hoping for something so terrible but Gyles certainly had set his imagination toward the more intense possibilities.  Nevertheless, he felt distinctly miffed.  His state of being—Omega—was quite inconvenient here without her as he suddenly found himself at the table with two men who thought it entirely reasonable to _fornicate_ with _other men_.  Not just other men, he corrected himself: _him._

He swallowed hard, recalling the way Gyles had glanced downward at his lips as though contemplating something truly devilish after having told him that _being_ kissed was different from _kissing_.  He felt his cheeks warm at only the memory of it and a deep-seated shame filter into his heart.  He would have to be more careful around such dangerous men.  They smelled like spice and earth and they were terribly handsome but they were _fornicators._  He gently reminded himself that he was a man of no hidden vices—Will had certainly been right, hadn’t he?  That he was not as Reverend Shelton had said.  He could not trade his purity for hot baths or enticing male scents.  This inner resolve was immediately pitted against that drowning enthusiasm from Mr. Jerard.

“Well if she’s not feeling well then I suppose we must hope that Mr. Morehill’s constitution is more robust.”  He grinned heartily at Aymes. “Tell, little one, how is it that you’ve come to stay with our mutual friend here?”

Gyles cleared his throat, drawing Jerard’s glance and understanding that it was a discussion best left alone.  Aymes’ relief was likely apparent to the older Alpha for his caught Gyles’ eye and silently thanked him. He’d no wish to spill his shame and no wish to relive it either. Only a few days ago and still so fresh in his memory: laying in the dirt on the side of the road after a week of naught but prurient agony.  He couldn’t hope to think that it would never happen again and he couldn’t be reminded of its inevitability.

“Alright, I’ll rescind it,” Jerard said, frowning.  “How do you like the horses?”

Aymes lifted a bit of his soup in his spoon and then let it drip down into the bowl.  “I do enjoy watching them play.  Mr. Whittle has taken me to Brind to observe his transactions.”

“A small businessman,” Jerard chuckled.  “Fascinating!  Surely when you’re wed, you won’t wish to be trotting about with _transactions_.”

Gyles’ face was unreadable even as Aymes looked to him again for rescue.  He remembered what the man had said about his scent.  That it could protect him.  Would it protect him from this?  He stared just over Jerard’s shoulder and realized he must look quite silly.  “I have not considered marriage, Mr. Jerard.  Forgive me, that must sound odd.  From what I understand, I’ve not had a most conventional upbringing.”

“Certainly not,” Jerard smiled.  “What else do you do around here, then?”

“Mr. Falborn has taught me how to mend a fence, I’ve kept myself busy with the laundry—”

“The _laundry?_ ” he remarked incredulously.  He twisted his gaze to Gyles.  “By Heaven, Falborn, is he your guest or your servant?”

Gyles offered a nonchalant response.  “I do not stand in his way.  Whatever he wishes to do to keep himself from idleness is none of my concern.”

Jerard scoffed. “Should you be in my house, little bird, it would be all of my concern.  I should rather have you lounging and pampered.”

Aymes felt his nose wrinkle.  “I am sorry, Mr. Jerard, but I could not survive in such a manner.  It was not to be lazy and pampered that Adam was placed in Eden.”

“And yet so loved by God,” Jerard purred.  “You are far too sweet of an Omega.  Let me walk with you after supper.  I should like to hear more about your doddering around this dreary place.”

An odd panic rose in his throat.  “I do not find it dreary in the least.  Mr. Falborn has been very kind to let me stay here for a time as I have found myself in trying times.  I assure you, his home is very much a warm and… _tempting_ seclusion.”  He regretted the word as soon as he noticed Gyles’ eye glinting with interest from it, the shine of it much like the glitter of steel in the sun before a battle.  Had Aymes any true sense at all, he should not have said anything of the like.

“Tempting?” Jerard asked, casting a glance to Gyles that Aymes could not read. He seemed to weigh things in his mind before he addressed the other Alpha.  “Gyles, what do you think of all of this?  You’ve been curiously silent.”

The Alpha put down his spoon in a mostly empty soup bowl, the only one who’d eaten very much of anything at the table.  He wiped at his mouth with his napkin and gave them both a wry stare.  “I think Mr. Morehill can do whatever he wants.”

Jerard scoffed again.  “He’s an _Omega._ ”

“Yes.  He is. Having come into my home mere days ago, he’s used to a productive lifestyle.  He’s only just presented, he can’t be expected to abandon everything he’s ever known simply because of his gender.  He’s been conditioned to be a practical man and a practical man is what he will likely remain.”

Jerard seemed flustered by Gyles’ candidness over _presentation_.  Aymes deduced that surely the word must have been a description of his transformation.  From a dutiful son and pious citizen to a lusty and sin-ridden exile.  It seemed innocuous when it was stated so simply and yet he found his own cheeks blazing over it as well.  Jerard was clearly taken aback.  “Clearly Gyles, you’ve gone the way of the Alphas in Boston.  They’d have their Omegas working their fingers to bone.  Perhaps settling down this far north has done you some wrong.”

“He is not my Omega.”

“He’s in your house.”

Gyles’ gaze cooled.  “He is free to do as he wishes.”

Puzzled, Jerard picked up his wine and took a few sips from the glass.  “Perhaps settling this far north truly did do you some wrong.”

Gyles’ scent was bizarre, alternating through a burning and a metallic tang that twisted Aymes’ stomach.  He didn’t think he could even take a single sip of his soup so he put his hands in his lap and tried to breathe through his mouth.  Breathless, he took a shallow sigh.  “Forgive me, gentlemen but—”

Jerard stood. “Please, don’t say you’re to leave.  I hadn’t meant to become so impertinent.”

Aymes understood that his sudden pang of fear was merely instinct on a level that his conscious self could not yet consider.  He froze in place for only a moment as the tall Alpha loomed, his size suddenly far too great for Aymes to combat.

“I think,” Gyles began in a low and calm murmur, “Mr. Morehill needs a moment to breathe.  He’s got hardly a soul to defend him from the likes of us and being trapped at the supper table has done his nerves no good.”

He was glad at least to have Gyles on his side.  Fornicator or not, the Alpha had a good sense for exactly how Aymes was feeling.  He couldn’t bring himself to speak any longer and so he scurried from the dining room and felt cowardly tears welling up from his retreat.  He strode without purpose to the kitchens and then out the back door.  The sun was sinking though not fast enough.  He wanted to watch the sunset over the trees and feel the fading warmth.  He wanted to witness such perfection as the sky painted orange and red and pink before it faded to deep blues and purples.  He wanted to sink into the earth and be forgotten like many broken relics before him.

Feeling tears slipping over his cheeks, he wandered until he was beneath a towering elm in the middle of a rippling meadow.  He thought recklessly that this Jerard, this Alpha, was interested in him.  Not that he was interested in _him_ but more he was interested in his body…whatever this _Omega_ body meant to someone like him.  He made a displeased sound that seemed only to prime the pump for the yell he released.  Frustration and unease grew and erupted in a burst of noise that came out of him in no particular array.  It was not quite a scream and he yelled it toward the top of the elm and toward the sky.  He didn’t have to use words.  If the Lord God could see inside him to find his hidden sins then he could certain see inside him enough to know that he was unhappy.

_Is it enough to know I’m suffering?  Is this what you wanted?  Is it enough to know that I have known more fear now than ever?  Is it enough for you?  Is this uncertainty to be my constant companion?  What have I done?  I must deserve this, but I cannot even fathom the nature of my crime. Why? Why?!_

He came to his knees at the base of the elm and twisted to lay on his back, watching the blurry lines of the branches through his tears until there were no more tears left.  His eyes felt gritty and his mind felt tired and in the hazy warmth of the evening, Aymes drifted off to sleep.

He woke sometime later and could not bring himself to be startled that the sun was low behind the trees.  He could smell the tingling spice of Gyles close and turned his head to find him laying nearby, close enough so that if Aymes would have reached out, he could have touched him.  The aroma he emitted was so dangerously calming and yet Aymes basked in the comfort of it.  He knew Gyles was awake somehow—an awareness was present that somehow he could sense.  Even still, he did not speak.  He did not dare ripple the water of their mutual peace and they lay together watching the stars begin to shine through the gathering dark.

Finally, when the last vestiges of light were gone beneath the horizon and the crickets were singing, Gyles murmured low to him.  “When do you think you’ll forgive yourself?”

“What?” he asked, bewildered.

“For becoming an Omega.  When do you think you’ll forgive yourself?”

His comfortable state was as fragile as he had predicted, falling down around him in shards of his emotion.  “Never.”  He felt a hard lump in his throat.

“It’s not like this for everyone.  Plenty of families are overjoyed to have an Omega.  Beta families especially celebrate their Omega sons and daughters because it helps them become more prominent in the community should they marry them to a prosperous family.  It’s not a curse.  It’s not a blight.  It’s a blessing for most.”

“Whittle told me that when we traveled to Brind.  But you’re all just living in sin.”

“You cannot tell me that a Beta is entirely free from lust.  Should that be the case, you’d not have any brothers or sisters.  You’d never have been born.” Gyles turned his head toward him but Aymes could not meet his eyes. “You’ve no idea how ridiculous you sound, telling me that Alphas and Omegas are living in sin when they’re merely doing exactly what they were designed to do.”

“Which is what, exactly?” Aymes asked, his voice louder with his frustration.

“ _Breed_ ,” the Alpha told him matter-of-factly.  “We’re meant to propagate. An Omega is fertile during their heat and that’s all there is to it. If one cannot mate during that time then there is no point in mating at all.  Should God have intended us for something else, he should have made us immortal.”

“H-heat…” Aymes repeated, again feeling breathless.

“Yes.  Heat.”

It was an apt term, he thought.  The fever, the intense need for _something_ that was expressly forbidden…heat.  Something _animals_ experienced.  He was in no way unfamiliar with how the cats that caught the rats in the storeroom wandered about searching for toms to breed them.  His voice didn’t sound like his own.  “Like…like _cats._ ”

“Like dogs, more or less,” Gyles provided.  “You’ve not the knowledge of the Alpha anatomy to make comparisons and our eh…ehum… _provisions_ do not hold similar characteristics with those of _cats._  Thank God…”  He sighed and rolled to face Aymes, propping up his head with his arm.  “I should be completely honest with you Aymes.  You are very handsome.”

He was trembling. He could feel it.

“I told Jerard that I had no intentions toward you.  Because I don’t.  But that honesty has placed you in a precarious position.  I know you’re not prepared for a suitor, much less, a husband.  He’d taken a shine to you and though he is clumsy about romance, he usually takes whatever it is that he wants.  I was _hoping_ that would be Lady Amanda…but it seems that you’re more to his taste.”

He could barely breathe and those shallow sips he did manage to take, he found them stuttered.

“I won’t let him take you, Aymes.  Not if you say you won’t go.”

The Omega reached out, gripping at Gyles wherever he found him first, his fingers tightening into the front of the Alpha’s shirt and pulling until he had dragged himself around to face him.  He couldn’t look into Gyles’ eye so he closed his own.  “P-Please.  Don’t l-let him.”

“I won’t.  I promise you.”  Gyles gathered Aymes into his arms once again.  “I won’t let anyone harm you.”

“Wh-what of you? What if you were to h-harm me?” he asked.

“I would rather cut out my other eye than harm you.”  The Alpha gave him a gentle squeeze in his arms and then murmured into his hair.  “There is a warm meal and a blanket Lilly’s knitted just for you in your room. Would you like to get up?”

“There is still so much I don’t understand,” he whimpered, hiding his face in the man’s chest.

“I’ll answer anything.  Everything.  You need only ask.”

Aymes allowed the man to take him to his room, relieved beyond everything that there was not a soul to see him escorted to his chamber.  He had not missed that Gyles had been offering his arm when they were walking different places, he had merely not wished to debase himself insomuch as to take him up on the offer.  This time was different.  He needed touch, he needed closeness.  If he could not have a closeness of spirit with God, he would have to make do with this closeness here on Earth. Once he was in his room, Gyles brought him the knitted blanket Lilly had made him, explaining that she had begun when he’d first arrived. It was beautiful and blue and Gyles placed it around his shoulders immediately.

“She spins the wool from our sheep here in the lower pastures.  She dyes it herself as well and I make certain she has what she needs for any color she could ever wish,” he said.  “Come sit.  Whittle’s brought you a tray.”

He sat at the edge of the bed and numbly watched as the master of the house waited on him.  When everything was before him, steaming and appetizing, he looked upward at the Alpha whose shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows and whose graying hair was pulled back into a small messy bun. The gentleman who looked anything but.

“What is it, little Aymes?”

He was quiet for a moment before he stated that which had dawned upon him on his walk to the house.  “I will bear children.”

“Should you take a mate, yes.”

“I’m a man.”

“You’re also an Omega.  Omegas bear pups.”  The Alpha sighed again, this time deep and heavy before he settled himself down on the bed next to Aymes but not touching him.  His weight made the fine mattress sag a bit at the edge and he put his wrists on his thighs to dangle his hands between them.  “It’s not proper of me to describe the process.  Should you ever choose to take a mate, then I’ll explain.”

“You said you would answer everything.”

He gave a grimace. “I did, didn’t I?  Well fair enough.  What is it that you wish to know?”

Aymes looked down at his food and gingerly began to pick at it.  “I don’t know what to ask.  My whole life I have thought it unnatural for a man to lie with another man and surely the logic behind that was that it could never lead to children.  And here I am learning for the first time that my own body is capable of the feat…that I was meant to…”

Gyles got up, wandering with his hands in his pockets to the window where he peered out at the rising moon.  “You were made for an Alpha who will protect you and keep you safe.”

“And love me?”

“God willing.”

Aymes nodded, his mind buzzing as he picked at his food.  “I’d like to be alone now. I think I will not take my meals downstairs tomorrow.  I do not think I have the stomach for it.”

“Well enough.  I will see you then whenever you are ready.  Do not be afraid to ask for me.”

He ate slowly, processing everything he had been told by degrees until he found himself lost in wondering how terrible he might become now that he was gone from Haverton.  He had wished to remain as pious as possible, to become a paragon of morality that would transcend his transformation.  But everything in his life seemed to be topsy-turvy. Everything that had once made perfect sense was now tossed against the shoals of this new world and could not survive the battering. All at once he understood why Gyles smelled so good to him.  Why it felt so terribly right to be held by his strong arms and to press against the iron muscle of his chest with his hands.

He had never before in his life fantasized about a man in the manner that Reverend Shelton had accused him but now he could not help himself.  If he was to be branded a fornicator by the strength of his scent and the sweetness it trailed behind him then he could do no more harm to himself in this imagining, could he?  The Alpha had been honest and kind.  He had promised protection.  Was the small leftover of his scent that was still clinging to Aymes’ clothes enough to ward off Jerard or any other pursuer?  Could he get more of it?  Could he…possibly…

He blinked, driving the notions out of his head completely before he finished his meal and moved the tray from the side of the bed so that he could slip down to his knees.

_Please forgive me.  Please forgive me for my unclean thoughts.  I cannot tell if I am led astray now or if I have been led astray for the whole of my life.  This is all so new to me and a world of sin which I find myself drowning within.  Please help me.  If you have not entirely forsaken me, I need a sign from you.  Please.  Send me an angel, send me a signal, send me anything, I beg.  I cannot navigate this nightmare alone.  Please do not leave me.  Please…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to post this yesterday so here's this and as an apology, there is ANOTHER chapter as well.


	10. Chapter 10

Morning found Gyles giving Prince a good bit of a gallop, spraying the dew from the grass and fully waking the both of them up.  A good exercise was just what Prince liked in the mornings and the cool wind rushing across the Alpha’s face was good for him to liven up.  When he had dismounted and handed the stallion off to the stable boy, he spotted Jerard leaning against the fence to watch him.

“A fine horse,” Remi called.

Gyles approached him on the other side.  “Yes.  They all are.  Should you like some before you leave, I’ll be certain to cut you a deal.”

“What about that one?”

“My personal favorite, he’s not for sale.”  His face hardened and his voice lowered.  “I should tell you now as well…neither is Mr. Morehill. He’s expressed that he would rather not be courted.”

As Gyles expected, Remi did not take the news well.  “I beg pardon?  He would rather not…?  That’s ridiculous.  Gyles, he cannot know what’s best for him.  That is why Omegas have ruling Alphas—they cannot make their own decisions.”

“He’s made all his own decisions until now.  I see no reason why he should not continue to make them.  Walk with me, will you?”

“Only if you will allow me to implore you to change your mind.”

The Alpha grinned and made quick work of hopping over the wooden fence, allowing his friend to walk with him through the green and toward the orchard.  He was feeling a little peckish and the morning was just beginning.  It would be a hell of a thing to chance Gyles Falborn’s mind when he had already made it up but Remi was going to try no matter what his answer.

“I know he’s vulnerable.  I can see it, I can smell it.  He’s grieving from something and that’s not a problem for me.  You know how gentle I can be.  You know how I’ll treasure him.”

Gyles didn’t reply, continuing his pace with Remi by his side.  He saw a flash of pale pink in the short trees and he walked toward it with his friend oblivious.

“Gyles, I’m not joking.  I would make him my life.  He would never want again.  He would learn what it means to be loved with me.  His children would be doted on, his grandchildren would be spoiled.  It’s within me to do all of this and it is within your power to give that to him through a betrothal with me.”

“Forgive me, Remi,” Gyles murmured, “but if you recall, I brought you here for a purpose.  That purpose was for you to meet and assess an Omega for marriage.  That Omega was a woman of high birth, not a young gentleman of questionable bloodline.  Mr. Morehill has communicated to me that he does not wish to be married nor in any way courted.  In my opinion, his mind is in a very fragile state.  I’m afraid for his nerves, Remi.  He’s been under a very high strain.”

“You think him…”  His friend gave pause.  “No…you can’t think him mad.”

“I don’t.  Not yet.  He’s not got a long ways to go for it though, I must admit.”

The flash of pink through the trees had turned out to be the splayed skirts of one Lady Amanda who was taking her morning easy by reading in the shade.  At their approach, she cast up at them a haughty expression and turned her nose up at them, returning to her reading.

“My Lady,” Gyles greeted her with a small bow.  “This is Mr. Jerard.”

When she said nothing, Remi bowed low to her.  “It is lovely to make your acquaintance my Lady.  May I join you?”

She glared at the both of them.  “Certainly _not._ ”

Gyles gave Remi a commiserating glance in answer to his baffled one.

“Well…” Remi breathed.  “This was certainly a short trip, wasn’t it?  I don’t suppose you’ll reconsider, my Lady?”

“Are you _deaf_ , Mr. Jerard?” she asked, her eyes cold.  “You may not join me. You may not make my acquaintance.  I reject your presence entirely. I find it insulting that I should be subjected to this treatment by a nobleman such as Mr. Falborn as it speaks rather terribly of his character!  For him to even suggest that I should be content to be courted or even _married_ to a _lowborn_ _commoner_ …I could be sick!”

Remi looked up at him, his mouth tight across and his brows up.  No words were necessary when the Alpha turned around and walked toward the house, Gyles at his heels.  They were a sufficient distance from the lady before he turned around abruptly and took Gyles’ by the front of his shirt to keep him close enough to scent the burn in his aroma.  “Why did you bring me here, Falborn?  To take me down a peg or two?  To dangle an Omega in front of my nose I would never have?  Two, even? What is this?  Is this your jealousy?  Did you want to get yourself into the shipping trade?  I could have helped you if you wanted more money.”

He shook his head slowly.  “No, Remi.  I don’t need any more money.  I thought that your resolve and your will could erode her stubbornness.  But your attraction to Mr. Morehill has clouded that will.  You don’t want her and so you won’t fight for her.  I’m sorry I’ve brought you out here for nothing.  Marriage into a prominent English family would do you some good for your business.  It’s not a love match by far and obviously through your words for Morehill, that is what you desire.”

“Of course that’s what I desire!  Who could resist it?!”  He let go of the Alpha and turned away again, putting a hand through his hair.  “I could swear that you must have some designs on that Omega, even if you say you don’t.  He’s far too handsome to simply hoard him like some selfish dragon hoards his gold.  You could begin a collection of cold Omegas and invite us all around merely to stick our noses in it to tease.”

“That is not my intent.”

“Then give him to me.”

“No.”

Remi growled low. “Admit then that you wish to court him!  Do not lie to me, Falborn.”

There passed then a tense moment in which Gyles wasn’t even certain he was present.  He was sifting through every moment he had spent with Aymes and trying to weigh his answer.  After all, this would be a revelation as well. Surely he had taken the boy under his wing because it was the right thing to do.  He was protective as all Alphas should have been—and yet he had fantasized of kissing him in the orchard.  When he had found him sleeping just last night, he had considered how lovely it would have been to kiss him awake someday—when he would be certain not to be shocked and scandalized over it, of course.  He had thought of what it might have been like to teach an Omega what it meant to be shameless and proud of everything they were meant to be—sexual and alluring.  What it might feel like to undress him and to feather his fingertips over that untouched flesh in order to guide him and tutor him in all manner of love’s acts.

Remi glared at him.  “Of course you do.  Else you never would have let him become your problem…a proper lady you cannot ignore.  A lost dog you could, should he not be so sweet and innocent and ripe for your knot.”

The Alpha felt a heat in his heart.  “He is not _ripe_ for anything.”

“Twenty years old and writhing in his next heat and you’ll change your mind about that.”

“That is quite enough, Remi.”

“That _is_ quite enough, isn’t it?” he snapped back, stomping off toward the house with his bristled scent burning along behind him.  It was quite the affront to be denied an Omega when hope had practically runneth over at the prospect of mating.

It was no surprise when Remi had balefully set about his return home and had left the estate without a goodbye.  Lady Amanda was preening over it, making certain that she was clearly visible for the whole of the evening to give Gyles her smug expressions no matter where he ended up.  It was almost as if she could predict him, with even his after-supper reading interrupted by her presence in his favorite parlor.

She was lying back on the settee, covered in a wool blanket despite the roaring fire in the hearth that had made the room rather warm for a summer night.  The mixture of the warm light from the fire and the fading sunset through the western window made her skin appear pliant and golden.

He stuck out his chin in the doorway.  “I suppose you think you’re very clever,” he told her without moving further into the room which was heavy with her scent.

“What would make you say that?” she asked, holding back her little smirk.

“I do not think you’ve stopped to recognize that I’m a man with many friends.”

“I’ll drive them all away,” she mused as if to herself.

“Will you?  I have my doubts.”

“You won’t send me away,” she giggled and shifted, purposefully allowing one of her feet to slide from the edge of the settee, her foot completely bare along with her ankle.

“My Lady—” he blurted, his eyes transfixed on her pale skin, iridescent in the firelight.

“You’re wondering what I could possibly be thinking,” she cooed, her body stretching languorously beneath the woolen blanket.  “Nude and in heat in a gentleman’s parlor.”

He startled and his hand came out to grip the door frame.  Her scent had been thick, that was certain, but for her to be in heat—he must have missed the tell-tale tang of slick…that or she was so early into it that he could not yet sense it.  He nearly fled right then but it was in that moment that she shifted and the blanket fell away, baring her while he stood uselessly staring.

“Close the door, Alpha.”

He didn’t move. He swallowed painfully, unable to look away from her well-formed breasts.  “My Lady…”

“Alpha,” she murmured.  “Close the door.”

“Certainly.” With a great amount of force, he ripped his rooted feet from the carpet and took his steps out into the hall where he promptly shut the door.

“Alpha!” he heard her screech through the hardwood, giving him pause before he tore himself away.  Her heat scent that had been trapped beneath the wool had reached him and his eyes were still watering when he marched with heavy steps toward his room.  His trousers were far too tight at the moment and he was in desperate need of a cool bath to ward off his oncoming rut.  He hadn’t experienced a rut in a long time but the fogginess it caused was all too familiar and he shook his head to dispel it, only vaguely aware of how uneven his steps had gotten until his shoulder collided with the edge the wall and he was forced to pause.

“Alpha?” came a small tone—an Omega.

His mouth was dry and his tongue felt thick.  “Don’t come close.  Please.”

“Are you alright, Master Gyles?”

_Oh God, Aymes, please don’t come near._  He wished his mouth didn’t feel like it was filling with raw cotton.  He kept his eyes closed and his hands on the wall.  Never before had a heat affected him so greatly and his only explanation was that he had gone so long without having smelt the incredible richness of one.  “I’m alright.  I’ll…I’ll be alright.”

“Are you sick? Should I fetch Whittle?”

“Just keep away from me, little one.  I cannot bear your scent.”

“I will fetch Mr. Whittle for you then.”

“Send him to my chamber.”

“Yes, Master Gyles.”

He heard those pattering small footsteps retreat into the house and he sighed with relief.  He couldn’t handle the beautiful and shimmering scent of Aymes Morehill now, when he was itching to bury himself in a sweet and soft Omega.  He normally prided himself on his ability to retain his composure despite all that sought to shake it but now, he could not trust himself and thus he must keep Aymes from him at all costs. At the least, he thought, he really could save the little one from himself and that was the most important issue.  Remi was gone and all there was left was for Gyles to remain steadfast in denying himself a touch or a taste of the shy and sensible Mr. Morehill.  He deserved more than an uncouth Alpha who blamed his indiscretions on his instincts.  He deserved a true gentleman, not a rake.

He stumbled his way to his bedchamber and pried open the windowpane, taking huge gulps of the clear night air.  Behind him, he heard the latch on his door.

“Mr. Falborn.”

“Whittle.  I need a cold bath.  As cold as you can get it.”

“I already have them in the ice house, sir.”  Ever efficient, Whittle was stuffing rolled linens against the space under the door to keep any scents from flowing in or out.  “When little Aymes told me…”  The Beta’s voice was shocked.  “I couldn’t believe it.  He told me that your scent was terribly odd, that you were acting very queer.  Then I…in your parlor…”

“She’s a viper,” he breathed.  “Tell Lilly to tie her to her bed so she cannot come to me.  If I had been any closer to her, she may have gotten exactly what she wished for…had it not been wool that hid her…”

“I understand,” Whittle replied with dignity.  “It will be done.  I will keep Mr. Morehill from your room for the night.  He seemed quite anxious of your state.”

“Mmmgh,” Gyles groaned, balling his fist so as to avoid gripping himself through his breeches.  All he wanted then was Aymes, pearly and shining in heat and in his bed.  What he wouldn’t give to have the Omega tangled in his sheets, keening for him and baring his gleaming throat for a bondmark that would mark him forever and declare to all that he was claimed by a Falborn.

_Where is this coming from?  Am I not his protector?_

Another voice came to him then, raspy and his own, drowning out all of his logic.

_You’re his Alpha._

The cold bath was prepared and none too soon for he was still fog-brained enough to be close to leaving the edge of the window to seek out Aymes and beg for his attentions.  The night was young and he was having no trouble at all conjuring what he imagined Aymes’ young body would look like in the cool, silver moonlight that streamed in through the panes in his room.  It was only too easy to forget Lady Amanda’s naked form and just as simple to create a lurid fantasy in which the innocent Aymes should discover all of his hidden vice with an Alpha to mold and enjoy.

Sinking down into the shockingly cold water after he’d stripped completely, his flesh immediately burst out into goose pimples and he cringed hard, unable to reply to Whittle through his grimace when the man asked him if the water was to his liking.

“I will take your silence as indication that it will do,” the servant told him, bowing.  “If you need anything else, Mr. Falborn, please do not hesitate.”  He disappeared then, much to Gyles’ relief as being alone was most crucial for his next course of action.

He gently cradled his swelled knot with his palm and fingers, the ache of it nearly unbearable.  Chips of ice were still floating along the waterline and his bottom jaw was wired shut to keep it from jittering right off his skull.  His last rut he’d experienced without relief had been when he had been only three years an Alpha and he’d been trapped in a carriage with some distant cousin who’d fallen into a fit of heat unexpectedly by some sort of emotional strain.  He’d wanted then to bash his brains out against the carriage wall and this time was no different.  His groin throbbed and the draw of his instinct was difficult to contain though it was by no means impossible.  He knew what he wanted and yet he also knew that if he should be able to sit for an entire carriage ride back to their house in town from a party, he should very well be able to take a mere whiff and control every one of his basic urges.  He was not, after all, a fresh Alpha any longer.  With a shuddering sigh, he relaxed against the edge of the tub and kept his hand tight around his knot, wishing for the cold of the water to seep into every inch of his flesh until he was numbed by it enough to fade off into sleep.

He left the bath only when the swelling in his knot had subsided, his body shivering greatly from the cold.  It hadn’t been prudent to spend so long chilling himself but what else was he to do?  He grumbled mightily as he pulled a heavy quilt over his shoulders and stood before the fire to warm himself.

Blinking into the licking flames, Gyles had to acknowledge one stinging reality.

_I want him._

It wouldn’t do. Or would it?  Whatever his feelings, he would have to know Aymes’ boundaries before he could resolve this quandary.  He would have to know if the Omega felt anything at all toward him after having known him and assessed his merits.  And if he didn’t?  Well, he thought darkly.  He supposed there was always a small plot of land on the edge of his estate that could use a small country cottage and a quaint little exile to inhabit it.  But first, he had to give Aymes ample time to come to know him.

He moved to his bed, snugging himself under the sheets and counterpane and arranging the quilt before tucking himself deep underneath it all.  Until the first snow, he told himself.  That was plenty of time.  Then he would ask Aymes what he felt—if he felt anything at all.  In the meantime, he would focus most of his attentions on finding Lady Amanda a suitable mate and, he thought wickedly, he just might have the perfect Alpha in mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I mentioned that I love Gyles? I really really do. He's so...understated.
> 
> Anyways, here's your extra chapter as an apology for forgetting that yesterday was Wednesday. :D If these two chapters hit a mark somewhere inside you, please do leave a comment!


	11. Chapter 11

Aymes had never been all that fond of cats before he had come to know the kittens that roamed about the stables learning how to catch the mice that would gnaw at the oats and the hay.  Nearly every day he found time to play with them and watch their growth as they slowly grew into cats. Their mother, a long-time stable cat, watched him play with them while she kept a wary eye on his gentleness.  Over the weeks he had spent at the estate, she had learned to trust him enough for him to pick up and cuddle the playful kittens though she would not come to him herself for any such affection.  A few times, he had found that he was watched in his playfulness though he was becoming accustomed to showing less of his embarrassment at being seen, especially by Gyles who had a habit of arriving just as Aymes was taking a rest from his work.

He was holding one of the kittens in his lap while taking his luncheon one afternoon when Whittle passed by him and paused.

“How many weeks has it been since you came to us, Mr. Morehill?”

He peered upward and swallowed the bite of cheese in his mouth.  “Oh, I don’t know. Five, perhaps?  It has been now over a month.”

“There will be another suitor here for Lady Amanda soon.  We should get your room prepared for the event.”

Aymes frowned. “What could my room have to do with another suitor for Lady Amanda?”

“An Alpha, Mr. Morehill.  A strange one.  Pardon my frankness with you, young sir, but you’ll have another heat quite soon and it’s imperative that she does not take up your scent.”

Ah.  He knew the graceful swing and lull of his new life would come with the caveat that he tumble headlong again into that shameful state.  He stared down at the kitten in his lap and recalled what they had done to Lady Amanda during her heat.  “Will you tie me down?” he asked weakly.

“Should you require it.  Hopefully it will not come to that, though often it does.  Should you catch an Alpha’s scent during such a delicate time, you will be insistent upon reaching the source.  Though it can ease the pain, the presence of an Alpha sets you at the mercy of their…urges.  Omegas, you see, are not the only who have a near mindless lust.”  Whittle examined the kitten in Aymes’ lap and appeared perplexed for a moment.  “Is that one your favorite?”

“He is merely the most affectionate.  I don’t think I have a favorite.”  Still, he would not be diverted.  “Do you believe I will be safe from this stranger?”

“I do believe so, yes.”  The Beta reached down and stroked the little kitten with his thumb over his head.  “If you would like to meet her, I think she is set to arrive this evening or tomorrow morning.”

“The last suitor I met did not end on beneficial terms with Mr. Falborn,” Aymes mumbled.

“The last suitor you met was a high-spirited young buck of an Alpha whose will could have matched that of Lady Amanda had he found interest in her. Unfortunately, he found interest in you.”

Aymes felt his face warm.  “I still do not understand.”

“You’re handsome, Mr. Morehill.”

“Do you find me attractive, Mr. Whittle?”

“Not enough to wish to marry you which is good for my position here since I’m of the impression that Mr. Falborn is quite taken by you.”

Aymes felt his heart jump in his chest and he stared up at the Beta with wide eyes.

“Fear not, little one.  He’s bound himself by his own accord.  Should you ever decide to pursue him, I think it will take but one tender action.  He would make a fine mate.”

He had asked God for a sign and he had not yet seen anything that could have been construed as such.  There was nothing that could lead him one way or the other as yet and he could not possibly even begin to consider Gyles as a possible _husband._  Even the term stuck in his mind as something distinctively obscene and so he sought to change the subject.  “In your mentioning of this Alpha stranger, you called them ‘she.’  Are they truly female?”

“Indeed, though you should know that a female Alpha is no less dangerous than a male when it comes to your chastity.”

“I appreciate your honesty with me, Mr. Whittle.”  He kept to himself for the rest of the afternoon and there was no sign of a visitor until late in the evening after supper when Lilly walked into the kitchens where Aymes was assisting the cook in making the next day’s supply of bread.

“Gracious,” Lilly sighed as she sat heavily down on one of the benches tucked against the servants’ table.  “They certainly don’t weave 'em like that anywhere but the colonies.”  She fanned herself with one of the cloth napkins on the table in jest.

“What do you mean?” Aymes inquired.

“Lady Amanda’s suitor.  She’s come and she’s full gorgeous if you don’t mind my saying.  If Lady Amanda were to find it in her to deny her outright, I should be appalled.”

Cook didn’t even raise her head.  “I s'pose yer gonna have to get used to your affront.  That girl has got it out for Master Falborn, one way or t'other.  No mind how comely her suitors are, it’s a matter a pride about now.”

Aymes’ kneading upon his ball of dough slowed as his mind drifted to thoughts of what a woman Alpha could have been like.  Perhaps much like the hardy women of Haverton, strong and tough and ready to work with their hands.  Perhaps their strength was more a hidden one that came from years upon years of playing along the undersides of manipulations. Whatever she might have been like, he kept himself to the kitchen until it was late and Cook told him that it was time for him to retire.  He stole away to his bedroom to find a note from Mr. Whittle telling him to not hesitate to ring should he feel feverish at any time.

Embarrassed, he slipped into his bedclothes and tucked himself in, waking the next morning with the hope that perhaps God would reconsider and let him live on without another heat to come bother him.  With the presence of the note, he had almost forgotten that there was a guest come to stay with them.

His reminder came in the form of a new scent that lingered in the hallways and became stronger as he made his way onto the porch to eat his breakfast. Searching about, he found her lounging back on one of the cushioned couches, her contented scent pleasant in the warm mid-morning breeze. Only from first glance, Aymes could see why Lilly found her captivating.  Her hair was pulled up away from her face and was a rich nutty brown that blended well with her warm gray eyes.  She stood when he emerged from the doorway and gave him a loose bow and it was then that he realized her true height and the nature of Alpha women.  They were most certainly just as large and strong as men.

“Mr. Morehill,” she started in a kind and gentle tone, “Good morning.”  She had a lovely face and had she not been so tall, he would have thought her extremely attractive in a very extraordinary way.  Her very presence was that of stated elegance and even merely the manner in which she held herself should have given Reverend Shelton fits over her pride. No doubt this one could give Lady Amanda a challenge indeed.

“Good morning,” he murmured, holding his platter against himself.

“I’m Nell Fenwolf.  I’ve come to hear of you through our mutual friend, Gyles. He did say that you’ve agreed to be familiar with him.  Perhaps you would feel comfortable in familiarity with me?”

“N-No thank you, Miss Fenwolf.  Though I appreciate the gesture, it would be imprudent.  You must understand.”

“I do.”  She sat.  “Gyles tells me that you’re a rather skittish little fellow. I suppose he’s right and that you’ve plenty reason to be.  Perhaps you should come with Lady Amanda and I.  We’re to have a picnic on the lawn together and you can play as her chaperone.”

He didn’t feel much like eating his breakfast anymore.  “Forgive me, Miss Fenwolf, but the last suitor—”

“Gyles told me of Mr. Jerard’s interest in you.  You have no need to fear such an outcome from me, little one.  I’ve no taste for your sort.”

“My sort?”

“Male Omegas. There’s something not quite as soft about you.  All angles, you know. Will it make you more comfortable to know that the invitation has been extended to Gyles as well?  And that he has agreed?”

It did.  He merely nodded to her in answer though he was drawn to her somehow just merely by knowing that she meant him no harm.  Words tumbled out of him.  “Do you truly wish to marry Lady Amanda?”

“Her children will benefit from her family’s connections,” Fenwolf replied simply.  “Unlike Mr. Jerard, I managed to meet her.  I seemed to have caught her unawares last night.  It was a pity to see her without her guard set up.  Today I expect to see all of her rash wit.”

“It sounds as if it will amuse you to be insulted.”  He couldn’t imagine why anyone would put themselves through the barrage that was likely to be forthcoming from Lady Amanda’s vitriolic tongue.

“I’ve a particular way about me, I like to think.”  Fenwolf was tickled, it seemed, by his response.

Aymes, for his part, certainly hoped so.  She would have to do _something_ to win Amanda’s hand though then again, he thought wryly, she didn’t have to win anything.  From what he understood, an Omega was at the mercy of their ruling Alpha’s whim.  As long as Fenwolf decided that she would, in fact, like to keep Lady Amanda, the deal was done without the Omega’s approval whatsoever.

The morning faded into an overcast afternoon though the heat of the summer and the atmosphere had conspired to form an oppression of humidity that made it difficult for Aymes to even breathe properly. He felt overly dressed in his waistcoat and jacket and as though he were being strangled by his own neckcloth.  Uncomfortable both physically and mentally, he shuffled behind Gyles and Miss Fenwolf on the way to the blanket where Lady Amanda was already sitting with her skirts splayed out around her in order to keep any suitors at bay as they would not care to sit upon the delicate lace hems.

“Lady Amanda,” Miss Fenwolf greeted the frosty Omega with a bow.  “You’re looking rather well.”

Lady Amanda refused to reply or even look up at Miss Fenwolf though the Alpha did not seem daunted in the least, sitting down with the basket and setting out all the necessities while Gyles bade Aymes to take his own seat between the two Alphas.  When they were all settled, Gyles as host made to formulate the start of conversation.

“I suppose it is not the most ideal of days.  Should there not be so much moisture in the air, it would be far more  pleasant to lounge in the orchard.”

“I’m certain it will rain soon,” Fenwolf said lightly.  “Some quail eggs, my Lady?”  Upon being ignored again, she smiled.  “An odd choice to have worn a darker shade.  Should you not have been more comfortable in a lighter shade?  I’m told that the lighter gowns are becoming more popular among the Omegas of the ton though I never know how long those trends will last.  I was in London just this past month and I’ll be going again soon for business.  Shall I see about getting the latest fashions for you, Lady Amanda?  Consider them a gift.”

The Omega in question’s cheeks gained an incendiary red and she flashed the Alpha a glare that was half fit to kill her and half fit to kiss her.  Aymes, bemused, couldn’t help but stare at the odd expression.

_It is indeed truthful to say that this Alpha surely does have a way about her._  

Gyles murmured thoughtfully, “Perhaps Lady Amanda would enjoy some new gowns.  Though I shouldn’t recommend you to purchase such expensive gifts until she has demonstrated that she will properly appreciate them.”

The darling red that had blotched Lady Amanda’s cheeks spread to the rest of her face and her lower jaw dipped open in speechlessness.

“And you, little one?” Fenwolf asked of Aymes.  “Should you be interested in the fashions of London?”

He startled.  “Me?  No!  I beg your pardon, Miss Fenwolf but I am quite the simple man.  I’ve no need for such things and this set of clothes is, in fact, new.  Mr. Falborn graciously allowed for me to purchase it with Mr. Whittle from the tailor in Brind.”  His face was warm.  “I’ve resolved to do my share to repay him and I cannot imagine what I should owe you should you bestow upon me such lavish garments as I imagine they are.”

Fenwolf seemed ready to say something but was interrupted by Gyles.

“Such garb would not suit his nature in the least.  I hardly think the boy would wear half the trusses that the peers deem necessary for those poor little birds that flit around their dance floors.”  The Alpha’s words were warm and Aymes could feel his appreciative gaze on him.  Whittle’s words to him, that Gyles was fit to court him, floated about on the still water of his mind and he carefully kept his eyes from the man’s face.

It had seemed that the pugnacious Lady Omega had quite gotten the wind blown out of her sails and that her courage in the face of such an attentive Alpha had faltered.  She was reduced this afternoon to small, murmured words and toward the end of the encounter as Miss Fenwolf was discussing her business pursuits, Aymes was shocked to see her actually paying close attention despite her former guise of ambivalence.

Perhaps, through it all, Lady Amanda would fall to what seemed to be the kindest siege Aymes had ever witnessed.  Yet, he thought while the summer wind rustled the leaves of the fruit trees around them, would he fall to such a gentle siege as well?  Could he?  He spied where Gyles’ hand held him up where he leaned and wondered if one day he would be so maddened by lust or love that he should allow those hands to touch him.   Could he be so won by Gyles’ respectful distance and polite reserve?  His forbearance in the matter was equaled only by his warmth and his insistence that Aymes be comfortable.  Aymes thought, suddenly anxious, that one morning he should perhaps wake to find that he had shed his convictions to God and become as morally corrupted as Reverend Shelton had warned he would become.

Still, he could not help himself but to wonder what the flesh of Gyles’ palm might have felt like upon skin that had never once felt the touch of another.

“Are you feeling quite well, Mr. Morehill?” Fenwolf asked, snapping him back into presence.  “You smell rather sweet all of a sudden.” She gave a meaningful stare toward Gyles and the Alpha host nodded curtly in reply and leaned toward Aymes.

In a low voice, he muttered, “Perhaps a walk to the house, Aymes.  For prudence.”

“But Lady Amanda will be alone,” he whispered back.

“Miss Fenwolf and Lady Amanda will be perfectly fine.  Come.”  He brooked no argument and brought a hand out to Aymes with which he pulled him up.  His hand felt unusually cool though as Aymes began to walk beside him, he understood suddenly why as his steps were uneven and his mind clouded.

“Oh dear…I feel it…”

“Then you recognize it.  Good.  It will get easier with each time.  It is not fully upon you and it can be quite sudden, unfortunately.  I will be forced to leave you with Mr. Whittle and I will remove myself to the other wing of the house.”

Aymes reached out again and grasped at his hand for balance and for comfort.  “Wait…but I…”

Gyles paused with him only feet from the terrace steps.  “You’re in no danger from me, little one, and I’ve taken steps to aid you as much as I can, however assumptive it may have been.”  His eye was soft despite the width of his one working pupil—a deep blackened hole ringed in slate.  The other was still and forevermore plagued by that bluish deadness.  “I cannot express to you without causing you fright how deeply I wish the circumstances between us would allow for me to help you further.  But I hope you will not be offended by my gift to you and I certainly hope that you will overlook its imperfections, for I made it myself.”

He felt his emotions well up.  “I don’t want to go, Mr. Falborn.  I don’t want this to happen to me again…”  Tears began to obscure his vision and he felt cool palms cup his jaw.

“It’s alright, little Omega.  You’re alright.  It will be better this time because you know what is happening to you.  It is always worse at the first and now you know what to expect.  It will be easier this time if only for the gift I’ve given you.”

“Please don’t let this happen to me again…” he sobbed, his tears overflowing and the pressure in his head and body mounting with every beat of his heart.  He felt pitiful and pathetic, his prayers futile as a coward’s on the eve of battle.  “I cannot bear it.  I cannot, I will surely die.”

The Alpha seemed to tremble, his breaths becoming labored.  “Oh do not tempt me, Aymes, I would sorely wish to ease your pain.  More than you know.  But you cannot know the weight of your words to me.  Come. I will carry you if you cannot walk.”

“Please, please!”  He fell to his knees, unable to breathe for the weight of the sun on his shoulders and the heat that stoked fire beneath his very own skin.  He could hear the hysteria in his voice and the wavering might of his desperation.  “How can I stop this?  How does it end?!”

“By God, you will test me, Aymes Morehill,” Gyles growled, bodily gripping him by his shoulders to stand him upon his own wobbling feet before he swept an arm behind his knees and picked him up as if he weighed no more than a feather pillow.  The Alpha’s body was brimming with an enormous tension and Aymes was certain that the man was holding his breath as he walked quickly into and through the house.

_His scent_ , Aymes thought wildly, wriggling in Gyles’ arms in a struggle to get closer to him—to fill his senses with the spice of him.  He couldn’t speak, overcome with desperation for freedom and an unbearable arousal that pounded over him as though he were to be buried alive with it.

“Keep yourself together, Aymes!” the Alpha begged him as he struggled to keep him in his arms.  When he finally was able to put Aymes down, he deposited the mass of arms and legs down upon his bed and fought with him to some uncertain end.  It became apparent to Aymes what the end truly was when he found himself bound to the bed by a small but powerful iron shackle cushioned by light cotton that locked around one of his wrists and was chained somewhere beneath the mattress.

“ _No!_ ” he managed to shriek, pulling against the chain with all his might until he could feel the cut of the metal even through the cotton padding.  With his knees digging into his mattress, he pulled and tugged and flung his head toward Gyles who was backed up against the wall next to the door, staring at him with glittering voided eye. “ _Please!  Alpha!_ ”

As soon as the word “Alpha” had left his lips, he’d known it was to be Gyles’ weakness but the man was resolute.  Even as he took one step to pry himself from the wall, his pain was apparent and he pulled himself to the doorway, pressing his forehead against the frame, his breath heavy and his words forced.  “Aymes, please.  Do not beg for me.  Upon the nightstand.  It is my gift for you.  Please do not think it impertinent.  I will only say this to you because I am of the hope that you will forget this entire ordeal as fever has racked you…but I’m falling in love with you, little one and this is all I can stand.   _Please forgive me._ ”

He was gone then and Aymes struggled mightily but could not break the chain that held him.  The scent of the Alpha lingered and both soothed him and put him into a fury.  Arousal coursed through him and that hideous lust that had taken him into its clutches placed the final stake through his heart.  “ _Alpha!_ ” he screamed, yanking and jerking against the shackle until the heavy bed itself seemed to shake beneath his knees.  Sweat trickled from his hair and down his cheeks and nose and forced his shirt and waistcoat to stick to his back.  His lusty sweetness melded with the earthy tone of _Alpha_ that seemed still to haunt him and he screamed without words, the salt of his tears indistinguishable from the salt of his sweat.

Through his racing heart and labored breaths, he almost didn’t hear the calm and mild tone that sought to soothe him but with fevered eyes, he took in Whittle’s form beside him as the Beta sat lightly on the edge of the bed with his hands out as if to a skittish feral tramp.  Aymes was shaking, trembling all over and he could not even comprehend the man at first until his soft words were varied and plenty enough to cut through the ringing terror that had consumed him.

“ _That’s right, deep breaths, little Omega.  I’ve brought you plenty of water and ice for your fever.  You’ll be right as a summer rain.  Just leave it to Mr. Whittle._ ”  Cold hands touched Ayme’s face and compelled him to settle.  “Let me undress you, little one.”

He struggled again, pushing at the man’s hands.

“No, no, that won’t do.  You’ll have to allow it if you want any kind of relief.  Ah, I see you haven’t yet found your distraction.  You know, he was quite embarrassed to ask Lilly how he might make this for you but in my opinion, it came out rather well.”  Whittle reached out toward the nightstand and lifted a small _kitten_ made of a deep gray fabric.  “He’s scented it for you, I see.  Bold of him, but no one has ever accused him of subtlety when it counted.”

Aymes put out a trembling hand and weakly gripped the small animal, finding it soft and pliant and probably stuffed with stripped of rags.  He placed it delicately to his nose and breathed it in, the comfort of that scent both frustrating and calming him.

“That’s right.  Now that we’ve got that out of the way, we’ll just nip you right out of these clothes and you’ll be far more comfortable.  How’s that?”

Still foggy and disoriented, Aymes nodded and allowed for Whittle to unshackle him and assist him in shedding nearly all his clothes. When it came to his drawers, he was still shy and so he eased down beneath the covers before he peeled them away from himself.  He groaned at the iced compresses that the man put on his skin and gulped at the water he offered while clutching the little gray kitten that seemed to bring him both closer to himself and further from the Earth.

“How are you feeling, little Aymes?” his soft voice asked through the middling light that seeped through the curtains.

Capable again of speech as he lounged back into the mounds of pillows that had been brought to him, he brought the kitten from his nose and murmured.  “When will this end?  When will I never feel such longing again?  When will God spare me?”

Whittle placed a compress on his forehead and gently pet at his cheek.  “This is the burden of the Omega.  You will one day take a mate and that will make all the difference in the world.”

He squeezed at the scented cloth cat in his hand and stared at it with lidded eyes.  “I am destined then…for him?”

“For an Alpha, they say,” Whittle corrected.

He stared up at the ceiling, a rush of lust rippling over him until he was writhing in wanton passion.  

_I would give anything for this to end.  I would give anything.  Please let this end.  Please show me.  Please help me.  I cannot bear such a strain.  If you cannot keep this from me, I beg you, God, to kill me. End this.  One way or another._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Wednesday, my dudes. _AAAAAAAAAAA--_


	12. Chapter 12

The presence of the little gray stuffed kitten was both a blessing and a curse, Aymes thought as he was driven day after day to pressing the body of it against his nose almost violently, never quite getting enough of that vexing and distracting scent.  He fought the foggy-headed urge to touch himself but sometimes awoke with his hand gently cradling his swollen manhood, his fingers slippery with the fluid his body insisted upon creating.  Only three days into this maddening “heat” and he did not think that he had the constitution to withstand anymore.  Every so often Whittle or Lilly would come by to change his compresses and help him to stay full and well but nothing could release the thrumming, horrible lust that consumed him.

He had not been shackled to the bed frame since that first day and spent most of his time in bed, languishing.  He had not the patience to read nor steady enough of hands to work on any small projects.  He couldn’t focus.  He couldn’t find it in himself to do anything but drown in his own misery though finally, on this third day, he flung the sheets from his trembling form and stalked to the window. Streaked with rain, the glass was cool against his skin as he pressed his palms over it and pushed his forehead against it.

Thunder rumbled the house and lightning seared through the sky in forks of brilliant white.  Aymes breathed heavily, fogging the glass as he watched the storm roil and grumble over the orchard.  He could just barely smell the rain through the window, clearing his head a bit from his heat scent.  Perhaps, he thought slowly, perhaps if he were to run out into the rain, he would be cold all over and his scent could be dampened down.  Perhaps he could feel like himself again if only for a small while until someone caught him.

 _Until_ he _caught me._

He wondered what it might feel like, to have those arms come around him. To bury his nose again in his throat and take in the full force of the scent he could only get so much of from his treasured kitten.

_This is a symptom.  This is a test for me.  This call is the siren call of the devil._

And yet he could not resist it.  He turned around and, still trembling, donned a shirt and his trousers, ignoring the small trickles of slick that escaped him.  It wouldn’t matter, he thought, it wouldn’t matter when the rain was soaking through his clothes and hiding everything about him that was not simply Aymes Morehill.  When he was wet and cold and surrounded by the storm and the wrath of God, he would be human and a man and Aymes if only for a little while.

He opened the door to his chamber and, upon finding no one roaming the halls, he slipped out.  On a dreary afternoon such as this, the house held a sleepy feel and everything was quiet enough that he padded over the hardwood and the carpets with his bare feet, as silently as he could until he reached the front door which was unguarded.  He could not have gone through the servant entrance for surely there were several of them smoking under the eaves that would catch him and force him back up the stairs so as quickly as he could, with his heart pounding, he pulled open the front door which was heavy and stuck a little with the moisture from the rain and when he had it open just far enough, he squeezed his small body through the opening.

The air was cooler and already on the porch, he could feel the spray of the hard rain and the cold of the puddles beneath his feet.  He shivered and the heat from him was dispelled by the cool air and he fancied that surely when the spray hit him, it would steam up from his heated flesh.  He walked slowly down the porch stairs and into the driving rain, thunder coursing through the air and through his blood as the rain washed him from head to toe and plastered his loose clothes to his body.

“ _Mr. Morehill!_ ”

He jumped at the shrill exclamation and twisted his head to stare with wide eyes behind him.  Lilly appeared horrified to see him standing shoeless and soaking in the rain but he was not to be taken back without a fight, he determined.  He bolted suddenly and did not hear her further protestations as she screamed at him.  His feet were swift over the wet grass and he ran with all his might and all that stored energy from his pent up emotions toward the orchard where he could hide among the apple trees.  He would not be taken back.  He could not abide the stuffy room in which he would be forced to writhe in his lustful agony.  Freedom, it turned out, was intoxicating.

He flitted through the trees of the orchard and laughed despite his lungs burning for air.  He laughed at the absurdity of it all and when he was too exhausted and too winded to laugh anymore, he collapsed among the trees and watched lightning fork above him under the low dark gray clouds.

_Find me.  Find me.  Find me…_

After a short while, he heard wet footsteps through the grass and he rolled to get up, soaked through and through while warm fluid ran from his body and soaked into the seat of his breeches.  His eyes scoured the orchard and at the first glimpse of a white shirt, he jumped off in the opposite direction, sprinting through the maze to get away from the Alpha he hoped was chasing him.  There were no true thoughts. Simply emotions that ran away with him, setting his heart into pounding rhythms as it leaped between his throat and his chest while he laughed in short, patterned bursts of excitement.

He was still laughing—nearly hysterically—when strong warm arms wrapped around him from the back and he struggled while weakened by his laughter.

“No! No!” he cried out through his laughter, breathless.  He hadn’t the wherewithal to be shocked by himself but a shock of panic ran through him and he broke away, running full tilt until he caught himself on the slim trunk of one of the young apple trees and when he turned about, he saw his Alpha—truly _his Alpha—_ standing not twenty feet from him and soaking wet in the cold rain.  His mostly gray hair was pulled back though some small bits of it were plastered to his face and his single eye was flashing dangerously with the lightning that snaked and crackled through the sky.

Aymes stared at him, panting and uncertain until there came a strange shaft of light just over the Alpha’s shoulder.  A sudden break in the clouds appeared there, far off but above where Gyles stood and in that curious shaft of warm sunlight there came a brilliant and glimmering beacon.

He felt his lips move in a solemn whisper as he let go of the young tree and took his steps toward the Alpha.  “ _Therefore the bow shall be in the cloud, that I may see it, and remember the everlasting covenant between God, and every living thing in all flesh that is upon the earth._ ”

Gyles held open his arms and Aymes ran to him, embraced suddenly by those arms he sought without his mind but with his soul and under a glittering rainbow, he pulled in heavy breaths of _Alpha_ and rejoiced in his how perfectly _right_ it all seemed just then.

 _My whole life.  The whole of me.  In this moment under the covenant of God which was the first sign and is_ my _sign.  I cannot ask if this is right, for asking is to doubt its surety.  The mixture of light, the bow of colors, the rightness of the summer rains.  The dawn, the dusk, and somewhere in those dark afternoons—Alpha.  Alpha!_

“Alpha!” he barked out with his cheek mashed against the nook of Gyles’ shoulder.  “Alpha!”

Gyles’ nose was pressed against his temple, pulling in harsh breaths of his scent as he arms held them tight together and yet gently as though he were to be worshiped and treasured.  “Omega,” he replied in a husky voice, “ _Omega_ ,” he rasped in his breath.

_I’m falling in love with you…_

“I’m not afraid, Alpha,” he breathed, tightening his hold around Gyles' waist.  “I don’t want to be alone.”

“Then you never shall be.  Ever again.  But you’re not of your sane mind, little one,” was the rumbling reply.  “I cannot take you.”

“What can you take from me that I will miss?  I have been shown the covenant between Earth and God.  I had asked for a sign and there it lies, the bow above you.   _You!_ ”

Gyles lifted him, settling him upon his hip and looking up at him with that one good eye and the milky blue of the other. Though it did not _see_ him, Aymes felt the same joy from it when Gyles smiled and in a moment of delight he placed a steadying hand upon Gyles’ shoulder and leaned forward to kiss the lid of that blind eye, whispering against the delicate flesh there.

“Perhaps not a punishment, after all.”

“No, little one.  A blessing,” the Alpha replied.  “For without it, I should have been in England and married so long ago.  Before I could have found a little pitiful boy on the edge of the dirt road from Haverton.”

Aymes felt a rising urge and though he wished to stifle it, he groaned instead, clutching at Gyles as the wave came over him and he trembled.  “Alpha…I…I know not what to ask.  I feel as though I could turn to ash in your arms.”

“Is it very much true that you’ve never kissed anyone, little Aymes?” His lips twitched in his amusement.

“Yes. It is true…”

“Will you kiss me, then?”  His gaze was playful.  “Or should you hate to knowingly have done something that will lower your character?”

Prickled and yet not overly so, Aymes dipped his head and unceremoniously pressed his lips down over the Alpha’s. He wasn’t certain as to what exactly he was doing but this _was_ how it was done, he thought.  The fresh intimacy caught him off guard.  He hadn’t expected to be compelled to stay with his lips covering Gyles’ and for the man’s fingers to gently curl behind his head to hold him in place while he fully engulfed Aymes’ vivid imagination with an overtly arousing sensation.  Who could have known!?  That a kiss could be so wonderfully formed had been beyond his ken and yet here he was with stars bursting in his sight as tingles shot through his body and his blood boiled with needy emotions so directly tied to this closeness.  He had never before taken stock in the idea that a man’s soul was to leave him through his mouth in death but surely, _surely_ he touched another soul with his own when he kissed.

He jolted when he felt Gyles’ tongue plead for entry and even as a shade of embarrassment hit him, he acquiesced.  The foreign intrusion was startling and yet he could feel his blood rushing between his legs to exalt in it and so, tentatively, he brushed his own tongue against that which invaded.

“Mmm,” Gyles moaned into his mouth, withdrawing for a moment before delving back and forth to spark and rile Aymes’ body and soul.  When he drew back further to break their contact, his breath was hot against the Omega’s lips.  “You know not what you do to me, little Aymes.  I could ravage your body here and now with how far you’ve tempted me. I cannot fathom your reasons for venturing out into the open and inciting my instincts to chase you and catch you and kiss you like I have.  As much as nature insists that you are at my mercy, the truth is that it is the opposite.  I am…your servant, little Aymes.  I will do only as you wish.”

At a small bit of a loss, Aymes felt the fog around him, closing in even as the rain worked to wash it away.  That Alpha scent surged in his mind and he felt drunken and mad.  “Alpha…” he mumbled, pressing his face against Gyle’s throat to scent him and take his earthy essence to mix with his own.  “Please…I cannot stay in that room alone.  I cannot abide it.  Help me.”

“I cannot ravish you, little one.  I can only do so much before I marry you if you’ll have me.”

Aymes gripped at the Alpha’s wet shirt, fisting the material while his heart squeezed in his chest.  “Please Alpha.  Whatever you can do…whatever you can…please.  Help me.”

With that, Gyles carried him to the house and Aymes watched the clouds as his head rested on Gyles’ shoulder, the brilliant colors of that sacred bow shining through the glistening rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All this water and this boy still thirsty. <3


	13. Chapter 13

When Gyles placed Aymes very gently among his bedsheets and arranged the nest around him to no actual specifications, he stared at the little Omega with a gaze he knew was too overt and too hungry.  His heart was pounding in his chest and he had taken in too much of this heat scent to be thinking straight.  His own urges were overtaking his self-control and his hands shook near constantly with the impulse to strip Aymes down to his skin and touch every inch of his forbidden flesh.  After all, as long as he didn’t bite the boy, he could freely marry him without having to bribe the minister.  His breaths were short and that heat scent was in every single one of them.

_Horses galloping across the meadows, untamed and thundering over hard packed dirt.  The wind whirling through wildflowers and twisting them about to sway back and forth as if calling for the bees to pollinate.  The sweetness of late summer honey and the lazy feeling of dozing in the orchard when dusk was approaching after all the work of the day was done.  His heart filled with birdsong and his skin warmed by the setting sun.  Every breeze that tickled the leaves of the elms and the oaks and the apple trees.  A dream of a lover.  A dream of a mate._

He swooped down, leaning on the mattress to loom over Aymes and kiss him again, drawing small mewls from his throat as his scent strengthened with his arousal.  Gyles could smell the slick both dried in the sheets and wet between the boy’s legs.  Tugging and pulling, he peeled away the layer of clothes that hid the Omega’s pale body from him and when he was naked and heaving in the sheets, the Alpha nearly had to hold his breath for the beauty of him should steal it away.

Aymes was shy, curling his legs up with his thighs together as though it could hide him with his arms crossed over his chest.  He seemed to be fighting himself—the urge to both tuck himself away and splay himself for the feast warring for dominance in his instinct-driven state.  He was beyond words and so his eyes pleaded for the Alpha to do something—anything.  There were more kisses, wet and hot and ravaging.  He bloomed and opened like a flower would its petals to the warmth of the sun and his kisses.  His legs slowly parted and Gyles came between them, just barely brushing the sensitive flesh of his inner thighs and causing him to keen with his emotion and need.

“Aymes,” he whispered into the gasping Omega’s mouth.  “I can’t withhold myself.  I want you.  You cannot know what you’ve done to me.  In all ways I am yours.”

The Omega’s hands gripped upward, clawing at Gyles’ shoulders and pulling him as if to bring him closer.  His fingers gripped into the back of the Alpha’s wet hair and pulled him downward for more shattering kisses, probing and deep that set his blood to boil in his veins. There was no telling how far he would go now.  The scent was all around him and those sweet, honeyed kisses were drugging him and dragging him into oblivion.  There was no escape and his mind could not wrap around consequence.  The whole of the house would know that he was deflowering this innocent virgin Omega and they could do absolutely nothing to stop him…

“Please,” he garbled against Aymes’ lips.  “Please tell me to stop.  You’re the only one who can.”

He waited, gently pulling his lips away when the Omega silently begged him for another kiss, scenting the mild frustration from the little creature when he was forced to form coherent words.  His voice was so small, so meek, and he turned his head away with his shame.  “I cannot tell you.  I cannot.  I have never felt this before…surely, you are my fate.  I have been given to you, Alpha.”

“You cannot be given to me by anyone but yourself.  Should _you_ wish it, I will have you.  But from no one else.  Not even God.”

“Then yes,” Aymes groaned, his hands grasping at Gyles’ face, pulling him down again.  “Yes, please.  If it should be from myself—from what my heart screams…then yes, I want to be yours.”

At those words, Gyles quickly pulled away his shirt, reveling in the warmth of the room as Lilly had stoked the fire in preparation for Aymes’ cold return.  He shucked off his trousers as quickly as he could, awkward with how water-logged they had become.  When he was naked, he came between Aymes’ pale thighs once more and relished the shocked gasp the Omega emitted when his heavy length brushed against his own smaller sex.

“Uh-uh-Alpha?” Aymes asked, his eyes wide and his scent tinged with blatant fear.

“Shush, little one, you’re perfectly alright,” he murmured, pulling Aymes against him and working his fingers to the Omega’s nape and pressing there to calm him.  “There is nothing here between us but that which has been designed to be.”  He kissed Aymes’ ear and then his temple, sharing his heat and pressing himself against the center of him as if to illustrate.  He could feel himself trembling with his need to bury himself brutally into this pale and writhing body but through some miracle he held himself back, taking his time to gently allow for comfort.  The Omega’s thighs were splayed around his hips and his arms were twined about his neck, holding on as if for dear life.  If this was the siren call of the devil or the will of his God, Aymes was determined to see it through no matter.

_I shouldn’t be doing this,_ Gyles thought wildly even as he breathed hard and toyed with the shell of an ear with his teeth and lips.   _We’re not yet married and I’m going to ruin him.  I’m going to ravish him.  I’m going to knot him and have him for all eternity as mine.  Not a single Alpha when I am finished will dare to touch him for I will have him as my own forever._

Gyles heard his own voice, rasping and desperate.  “I’m going to touch you Aymes.  It’s not going to hurt.”

“Uhn…alright…”

He could scent the deepening of Aymes’ shame and anxieties from his throat when his fingers very softly came between them and brushed over the slicked and puckered up entrance of him.  “Shhh, it’s alright,” he whispered.  “It’s going to be strange for you, but I promise you, this is how it’s done.”  Pressure built until he could slip one of his fingers through the slick and into that tight and fluttering ring, eliciting a sharp and loud cry from Aymes’ mouth. “Have I hurt you, little one?  It should not be painful…”

“No I…are you quite certain that is…that this is…?”

He chuckled, the rumble vibrating through the both of them.  “Yes. I’m quite certain, little one.”  He pushed slowly until the whole of his finger was swallowed and then curled it forward, pressing insistently against those inner walls until the Omega beneath him jerked suddenly.  “Ah, and now you must understand how God has made you, little one.”

“Ahn…uhn! I don’t…I don’t know what you mean…”  His cheeks were a heavy shade of pink.

Gyles teased him again, pressing inside him until his body jerked and he gave a small shriek.

“Why!?” he panted.  “Why!  Ahn!  Is there no end to these revelations!? How do I…how do I bring myself to understanding without giving myself to the devil for this pleasure?!”  He gasped and sighed, his body trembling and his hard little cock dripping with beads of pearlescent white.

“It is not the devil who has made you this way.  Should you not have this within you, you should not be compelled to mate.  Every living creature must mate…God has made certain of that.”  He slipped another finger into Aymes’ body, slowly and gently opening him, working his fingers in and then out to Aymes’ shivering sighs.  It was the third finger that truly tested him, Aymes’ hiss of slight pain giving him pause before he could recoup and work those digits inside him.  “That’s my good little Aymes,” he whispered, mouthing at his lover’s throat and skimming his teeth over the sensitive skin there.  “Open to me…stay wet for me…”  Slick gushed around his fingers and spilled even when he withdrew them, Aymes giving a small grunt of some incomprehensible emotion when they were gone from within him.

“Ah-Alpha…” he mewed.

“Calm yourself, my love.  I’m here.”  He edged the blunt tip of his manhood against Aymes’ entrance and paused at the clear and sharp lance of Aymes’ fear in his scent.  “Are you still doubtful that this is how nature intended us to mate?  Your body reacts to me, Aymes.  Your mind cries out for me.  You’re an Omega.  Your womb begs for my seed.”  He laid his warm palm against his lover’s belly and swiped his thumb across his flesh.  “You and I were made for each other.”

He swallowed, vulnerable and pliant beneath him.  “I’m afraid.”

“Will you tell me to stop?”

There was a long and aching pause until there came a very soft sob and Aymes shook his head.  “No.  I cannot tell you to stop.  I do not wish it.  Still.”

Gyles pressed forward until the tip of him had breached the Omega’s tight barrier, all of his nerves screaming from both anticipation and sensation.  He held his breath, sinking deeper through the slick and the heat as Aymes gripped him tight and pulled him down, his fingernails digging hard into his back as Gyles drove ever further inside until the edge of his knot was firmly against the Omega’s rim. His manhood was in no way small but the length and girth of it didn’t seem to prove an issue for the resilient little fellow who’s body grasped around it, pulsing with the foreign intrusion.

“Oh God…” Aymes gasped, taking in sputtering breaths.  “It’s…It’s so far inside me…I feel so full…”  His own small white hand came to his belly, coming over top of Gyles’ and pressing.  “It seems so foreign and yet my body pleads me for it.”

“Are you beginning to understand now?” the Alpha asked, the tension in his body causing him to quiver with his need to thrust and move to relieve the pressure that besieged him.

“Yes,” he sighed, his head tilting back among the pillows to reveal his perfect strip of flesh that could be marked and claimed.  “Yes.  I understand…but there is still that burning…that need.  What is it?”

“Shall I show you?”

“Please…”

Gyles grunted, closing his eyes and shaking his head in an effort to maintain control while he gradually pulled back and then pushed forward again.  He did this several times until he could quicken his pace, the first quick snap of his hips causing Aymes’ mouth to open in a sharp gasp as his body clamped down and tightened.  “Oh yes, little one,” Gyles groaned.  His pace was steady and Aymes rocked back and forth with it, becoming accustomed to the motion even as his fingers gripped hard into Gyles’ long hair, pulling it from its band and mussing it in harsh tugs.

“ _Jj—Gyles!_ ” he cried, gasping and crying out, “ _Uhn!  Ahn!  Oh!_ ”

“Tell me if it hurts, little Aymes.  At all, ever, I’ll stop.  But you have to tell me.”

“ _Don’t…don’t stop…it feels…oh…it feels…_ ” He gave a long, drawn-out moan that ended in an airy gasping set of pants that set Gyles so close to spend that he knew then he had to knot the boy or he’d never get the chance.

“I’m going to knot you, Omega.  I want you to be mine.”

Aymes, clearly unsure of what any of that meant, didn’t reply but gripped his hair tighter, his grasp becoming harsher as the knot pressed hard against his open hole.

“Please take me, Aymes,” he begged, drawing back and then pushing forward again.  “Please take me.  You can, I know you can.”  Gyles buried his face in the pillows next to Aymes’ head, pushing hard to work his lover open enough to slide his knot inside.  Pulling back again, he heard the Omega take a sigh of relief before he slowly pressed forward again, this time so hard that Aymes gave a sharp and pained little cry before the bulk of the Alpha’s knot slid past his defenses and seated itself beyond the clenching ring of muscle that immediately clamped it inside and would not allow him to move.  At the full insertion, he felt himself release with a heavy shudder, spilling his seed deep into the welcoming cavern of his Omega’s body. “Aaaagh…” he groaned, his hips twitching until he could feel Aymes convulsing beneath him, his beautiful face twisted into a hard grimace as his body was racked by perhaps the first cognizant orgasm he’d ever experienced.

When the twitches and pulses had subsided and all Gyles could hear was the gentle sound of their shared breathing alongside the crackle of the fire in the hearth, he pulled one of the blankets of the nest around them and settled himself more comfortably to be tied to Aymes, curving around his body and molding those pale thighs against his sides.  Shifting to look at the Omega, he nuzzled against the boy’s jaw and chuckled when his throat was unknowingly exposed by mere instinct.

Gyles murmured softly, “The process is a bit of an undertaking…but the release is usually quite worth the effort.”

Aymes let his mouth drop open, breathing for a bit before he turned his head.  “I felt as though I were about to…to _perish._ ”

“And yet you are here.”

The boy gave an incredulous set of giggles, his mouth curving into a disbelieving smile.  “I’ve never felt something so…”

“Good?”

“I cannot even say if it was fantastic or terrible!”

Gyles laughed, his grin wide.  “I suppose that is fair.  You’ve not the experience to truly qualify it and your tastes have not yet developed.  Just wait until I put my mouth to you.  Then you will truly know that it is far from terrible.”

“I will not allow for that,” he laughed back.

“We shall see,” Gyles teased.  “What good would I be if I could not bring you to pleasure in more than one fashion?  A terrible mate, I should assume.”

“Is that what we are now?  Mates?  I will be your…”

“Husband, if you’ll have me.”

Aymes sighed, his smile fading.  “I have no choice…do I?”

“You may do whatever you wish…”  He felt a small ache in his heart and thought he might have been lying.  He couldn’t fathom allowing Aymes to walk out of his life now.  “But what we’ve done here…you might…”

“Oh…I could become…”

“With child, yes.”

Aymes moved his gaze to the ceiling and regarded it unseeing for a long time while Gyles watched him think.  After some time, his small hand sifted through Gyles’ hair, drawing his attention and smoothing it from his desperate graspings earlier.  “If it is truly alright…to be with you, then a minister will marry us.  And I’ll be your mate.”

“And have my children?”

Aymes smiled again though this time sheepishly.  “If that is what God wishes.”

“Mmm,” Gyles grinned again as he nuzzled against Aymes’ jawline.  “Your God can be fickle…but I’ve a good feeling about you and I.  There’s so much more I want to teach you about your body, about what I can do for you.”

His blush spread.  “Do not be lewd.”

“I’m in rut.  You’re in heat.  There is nothing but lewdness in this room for the next few days and that is an honest fact.  I’ve deflowered you before wedding you, after this then what is propriety?  I say these are the days I throw it all to the wind.  I will tell God I’m sorry for it all later, but know now that I will be lying.”

Aymes gasped and swatted him on his bare shoulder.  “A wicked man, still. Even blessed and still wicked.”

“Ah, isn’t that simply the way of it?  Now kiss me, little Aymes, so I can show you how much I have fallen in love with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **IMPORTANT NOTE: I will be on vacation until September 9th.**
> 
> This will be the last update of _The Flesh and the Spirit_ before then. If you want to read the rest (yes, all of it) of this story, you'll have to take that up with the link in my [Twitter Bio.](https://twitter.com/actualadultjd) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


	14. Chapter 14

There was, in the lucid moments, a small tingling of shame that tightened in his gut.  He had never felt something like this before.  It was as though his consciousness was being torn in two separate directions and he had no base upon which to stand.  There was the pure and untouched Aymes who had not a single attraction to other men and then there was this new interloper—an Aymes who saw the honed body of Gyles Falborn and could not help his absolute and all-encompassing lust which surged through him.  Somewhere in the hot, dark dampness of the room where mixed scents clung like dewy spiderwebs, Aymes felt his shame begin to creep cold fingers around his heart.

_I’m impure.  I’ve lost something.  Innocence.  Virginity.  I’m sullied…_

Gyles came to him with a platter, clothed only in his underthings and a robe.  It was nighttime and the moonlight was only just enough to cast a silver shine over the planes of his face.  The platter was covered in small morsels that could easily be popped into one’s mouth though Aymes was not feeling fit to consume anything.

The Alpha paused.  “You’re not feeling well?  What is this scent I’ve caught?”

Aymes curled in the sheets and pulled the quilts up around him, cursing inwardly as fluid leaked from his body and he imagined that with it came whatever was left of the Alpha’s seed.

“Aymes?” came the light question.  He sat, his weight heavy on the edge of the mattress.  His warm fingers came to the Omega’s ear.  “You’re having regrets?”

“I will have regrets over many things I cannot control,” he murmured, tears flooding and then spilling.  “There is shame in me.”

“Still?”

“I’ve given you myself…everything that my mother and my father and the Reverend ever warned me of: I have done it.  Should one be struck by the fever, one should be lost to lust and that has happened to me.  I feel as though I have gone to the devil skipping.”

“Perhaps a small chat with a minister who is not of Haverton will help you rest easier,” Gyles sighed.  “And perhaps I should have insisted upon such a meeting sooner than this.  Will you still marry me, little Aymes?”

He adjusted his head to stare up at the Alpha who implored him, his sincerity clear in his eye.  He was a kind and gentle man, that was certain.  He could bring Aymes comfort and peace, not to mention the most sinful of pleasures.  If there was some way, he thought, to keep himself chaste…  He sighed, fluttering his eyes closed again. “There is no sense in refusing it.  I have given up my celibacy and surrendered my body to you.  Knowing myself and how this lust inside me grows, I have no doubt that I will do so again.  Should I bear your children, I should most certainly be married to you.”

Gyles paused a moment and Aymes opened his eyes to watch him staring down at his hands in his lap, his fingers fiddling among themselves.  “I suppose,” his low tone hummed, “that such a relenting admission suggests that you doubt you may come to love me.”

Aymes stared at him, a mixture of emotions roiling about in his chest and belly.  “I know nothing of love.  I cannot say with any authority what I can promise you.”

“I am in love with you, little Aymes.  Entirely.  I wish only to make you as happy a man as you can possibly be.  If you can be content with that, I will strive toward it every day.”

“And if I tell you never to touch me again?”

Gyles’ face contorted into a harsh grimace, his scent sharpening with an emotion that Aymes could not place.  His voice seemed choked with pressure.  “Please,” he breathed.  “Please do not send me from you.  I could not contend with such a request.  If I were tethered to you but could not touch you, as a man and as an Alpha I would wither and waste from this Earth.  You are as water to my arid soul and I live but to touch you.”

Aymes felt his heart swell and he shifted to lay on his back, his thighs open under the quilts and the sheets that were rumpled around him. He reached out his hand to Gyles and gently brushed his knuckles over the man’s waist, drawing his gaze.  “Is it love?  To tempt the Devil in my care for you?”

“Is it the Devil’s work to want your mate?” he countered.  “And if it is the Devil, can you tell me then that all God’s children are products of sin?”

Aymes covered his face.  “I cannot tell you anything anymore.”

“Your religion has damaged you,” Gyles told him darkly.  “Do you want me to touch you, or do you not?”

“It is not about what I _want._ ”

“Yes…yes it is.  What you want is what you should have.  That is the end of it.  You may see your abilities as a curse but the rest of the world will see them as a gift as wonderous as any.”

Aymes could feel that burning need welling up inside him again and hot tears leaked from the corners of his eyes.  “I want to be touched,” he mewled.  “I want to be taken and ravaged by you and no one else but…”

“There is no condition to that, little one,” Gyles told him, turning to face him.  “If you want to be mine, then I will make you mine.  But I cannot survive if I cannot touch you.  Should that mean that I should let you be when you are not in heat, then so be it.  I will never come to your bed should you not be fertile.  Is such a thing acceptable?”  He appeared pained even to suggest it but the logic of it was sound.

Aymes gave a tentative nod.

Resigned, Gyles sighed and plucked up a roll of meat and cheese from the platter, urging Aymes to eat it which he did even though he didn’t feel hungry.  “You should take in some sustenance then, for I’ll have to get it all out of me while I have you here.”

He ate a few more pieces and drank heartily of the water but nothing could stave off the haunting burn that threatened him inside. Tension gathered in his chest and he was losing tears in trails down his cheeks for the inward horror of having made his mate upset with him.  He had been shown the covenant between man and God…that Gyles was meant to be his destiny.  But he had held doubt in his heart and he had brought about his lover’s ire.

“Please do not cry, little one,” the Alpha cooed.  “Things between us can never be how they are for anyone else.  We are all shaped by our nature and our time on Earth.”

“I have seen the promise between man and God…that everything would be as it should be…I do not deserve you, Alpha.  My faith has been shaken and I do not know how I will recover.”  He heard and felt the tears in his voice, a lump of emotion making it difficult to express himself.  “I need you to touch me now.  I need it.  I cannot help myself for my want of you is too strong.”

Gyles turned fully toward him and stripped away the bedding until Aymes was naked before him, laid bare among the sheets and feeling the last vestige of his prudence melt away as the Alpha’s gaze heated his flesh.  He could feel himself stiffen considerably at the man’s scrutiny and even when he tried to hide his reaction, he was far more compelled to spread his legs open wider.  The Alpha leaned over him and kissed him tenderly upon his mouth, begging him with his tongue to open to him and of course Aymes did, his body on fire from the softness and cloy of those kisses.

“Please,” he begged around Gyles’ lips.  “I want…I want your…your…”

“You want me to make you scream, little Omega?” he teased.

“Ahn…” He was suddenly at a loss, throwing his head to the side.

“Perhaps we will try something new to see if you like it.”  Gyles took him by the waist and easily flipped him to his belly.  Confused, Aymes tried to scramble himself up but found that he was held from behind, that strong body curving against him and his huge manhood nudging the sensitive flesh of Aymes’s inner thigh.  “Do you want it inside you, Omega?  Is your womb crying out for me still?”  One of his big hands traveled down, warm and scintillating over Aymes’ flat belly, pausing just before his fingertips would have brushed into the soft dark blonde curls between his thighs.

“Uhn!” Aymes groaned, backing up and feeling the light touch of his grand member against his taut little sac.  “Oh… _Alpha. Alpha!_ ”  His mind screamed and nothing about it was coherent.  Fractures of words and sentences came to him but he could not articulate them with his mouth.  He wanted to be touched in all the _wrong places_.  He wanted Gyles’ hand to cup him, he wanted that long, thick rod to sink inside him.  He wanted this _man to_  take him and dirty him in all the ways he knew how.  He panted, leaning back, desperate for something he couldn’t define further than sinful fornication.

He wasn’t prepared for Gyles’ warm fingers to pinch at his pink little nipples, tugging the sensitive peaks while he trilled in his throat with his surprise.  No one had ever touched him in such a place. Nothing had ever suggested to him that such an action would produce this feeling.  He writhed and mewled as Gyles rolled the small nubs between his fingers, teasing them until Aymes was hanging his head with his mouth open to watch him.  The sight was nothing short of patently erotic, the view of the Alpha’s deft touches over the peaks of his chest and then, further back, the sight of his stiffened rod nudging at Aymes’ groin…he couldn’t bear it.  Slick liquid seeped from his rear end and he saw the transparent lubricant drip around the shaft of Gyles’ member and trickle down the man’s sac and thigh.

“ _Alpha,_ ” he gasped, unable to anymore to watch, feeling drunk on the wine of his sensuality.

“Do you want me, Omega?  Do you want me to show you what I can do to you?”

“ _Yuh…yes. Yes…_ ”

Those hands moved to his sides and then slid down to his hips as Gyles straightened up and then urged the Omega to spread his thighs wider and support himself with his forearms instead of his hands, leaving his body tilted at a severe angle and his rump upward and exposed. Sitting back, the Alpha gripped at his hips and then leaned forward, shocking him straight out of his mind when his lips and tongue met Aymes’s wet opening.

“ _ALPHA!_ ” he shrieked, clawing at his pillow and jerking his hips as if to remove himself from the onslaught.  He was held fast, his rasping breaths ragged and desperate, punctuated with a groan as his lower body convulsed with tense spasms of release.  “ _Alpha-ahn!_ ” Even then Gyles didn’t stop, lapping at him and licking into him until he was satisfied, Aymes’s body twitching in the aftermath of his climax.

“Oh, little one.  How beautiful you are when you’re aching with pleasure. Do you want me to fill you?  From behind?”

“ _Ugh…_ ” Aymes couldn’t think clearly anymore.  He knew he had come to spend on the fine sheets again and so again he clawed at his pillows as though he could be saved from himself.  The fire within him could not be sated merely by his lover’s lips and tongue.  There was a defilement that he required and it was one that had surely be sanctified by the colored bow above the Alpha’s head.  He was meant to be filled.  He was meant to be _bred_. “ _Uuuuuhhhhnnn,_ ” he moaned loudly, unable to even conceptualize how he should feel to be plumped up with a babe much like the women of Haverton were should they have conceived.  Was this what happened in their bedrooms?  Was this what he would have done to them should he have remained without the fever?  Without the _heat?_ Surely it could not be like this for the prim and proper girls of Haverton—they were far too rigid for that, were they not?  They could not be overcome by lust as he was, so what drove them?  What made them mate?

He could not complete these fragmented thoughts as Gyles was pressing inside him, opening his body and filling him with thick warmth.  The first thrust was shallow but intense and Aymes cried out with it, his mind begging for more.  So much more—he wanted what Gyles had given him last time. He wanted the _knot._ He waited, each second drawing out into infinite lengths until the Alpha gave him another thrust, each savage, plundering movement driving him further and further inside until Aymes was certain he could feel the end of himself at the mercy of his cock.

There was a rhythm then as he was held by his hips and plowed pitilessly from behind, his shrieks and moans in a passionate pattern of sound that mingled in his ears and echoed with Gyles’ low rumbling Alpha noises.  It seemed as though every movement inside him could spark the grating and terrible pleasure that would eventually cause him to erupt with it and so he let himself go, relaxing fully and accepting that he could not fight it.  This lust was beyond his power.  He was only human, after all.  There was nothing he could do.

The realization came as Gyles worked to force the swelled base of his member past Aymes’ barriers and the Omega screamed in want.

“ _Yuh! Yes!  Yes, please!  God!  Yes!_ ” He didn’t fight it.  He couldn’t.  Pliant and willing, he felt the throbbing base work inside him and press insistently against the core of him, inflating until he had no choice but to spend again.  This time, it was of savage intensity, rocking him from the inside.  He couldn’t feel save the racking and horrible pleasures that made his body tense and spasm, his arms collapsing and his abdomen jerking with each throe of sensual ardor.  He was limp after, his body gaping around Gyles and his thighs lax and open.  The Alpha’s warmth around him as he was draped and covered and protected kept him grounded inside himself even as small shocks of pleasure still tortured him.

“Shhh, are you going to drown in my love, little one?”

He couldn’t speak.  The muscles in his belly were still clenching and unclenching over and over and until it was done, he could do nothing. Stuck to his mate, he allowed himself to be cuddled and pulled under the quilts and sheets, arranged to be comfortable so that he could rest.

It took him at the very least a quarter of an hour to find his voice again and with it, he mumbled softly.  “Alpha?”

“Mmm, yes?”

“How is it that women conceive?  Is it so much like this?”

“If they are Omegas, yes.”

“And what about…the Betas?  The girls from Haverton?  Do they feel how I feel?”

Gyles slipped his hand again over Aymes’ womb.  “They have something inside them that makes them mate, yes.  They are driven more by obligation than by instinct, I assume.  I do not know, really.  I’m not certain how a Beta should fall in love.”

“Then how can I be certain that I shall at all?”

“You cannot, I suppose.”  The Alpha kissed the back of his head.  “But I will love you regardless of whether or not you love me.  I do not place conditions upon it.”

“I fear as though one day, you will come to regret me.”

“Then we fear the same and are equal in that, at least.”

Aymes was quiet, turning that sentence over and over in his mind until he could feel Gyles’ breaths deepen and even out into sleep.  Locked to his mate and filled inside, he was sated for the moment and yet deeply disturbed.   _Then we fear the same._ Gripping one of the pillows to his chest, he closed his eyes tight and willed himself to find sleep, restless and worried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I made it to Seward, Alaska and I have WiFi today!!! So here I am updating this from my phone. Ironically, there were a bunch of screaming Jesus-people here today and as they were marching down the street this woman yelled “RUN” and we had to take shelter with a lady in her sewing store. She had about as much patience with them as we did! Lol! 
> 
> I have been in and out of service, on the train (drinking mimosas), and hiking in the tundra of Denali. Saw grizzly bears, moose, magpies, and bald eagles! Tons of falcons, songbirds, and even some sandhill cranes.
> 
> I’m glad to have this moment to update! Make sure to let me know your thoughts!


	15. Chapter 15

It was over far too soon.  Gyles wished that he could have had the gall—the _audacity—_ to have done such a thing from the beginning but now it was over and he would have to pray that what he had done would not result in a pup. Half of that prayer was due to the timing for what would have to be a quiet wedding and the other half of that prayer was so that he would not have to keep his hands off of his mate for a full nine months. How he could ever have made such a promise was beyond his understanding.

_Not touch him unless he is fertile?!  Gyles, are you mad?!  How could you ever even let it come from your lips?!_

It was eating at him that he could no longer touch his little Omega after the scent of his heat faded entirely and so for the remaining hours, he swept his large, warm hands over Aymes’ body, teasing him and giving him as much pleasure as he could manage.  The boy never really did get used to having the intense and racking climaxes that had marked his heat so far, each one giving him trembles that lingered long after.  Often, he was breathless and could not speak for a time.

The last he experienced was a small tension that released from Gyles’ tugging fingers and in the moments just beyond, his scent faded almost entirely.  

Gyles released him from his grip and rolled to the edge of the bed to swing his feet to the floor.  He quickly bathed himself with the warm tub water and a rag before he took a long gaze at the rumpled pixie tangled up in the heavily heat-scented sheets.  “Would you like me to help you bathe, little one?” he asked, hearing the husk in his voice still.  A rut only three days in length was hardly a satisfied rut at all.

Aymes stared up at him, tucking the sheets around his nakedness as he came back to himself.  “N-no, I…I should not impose upon you.”

“Aymes…”

He paused, clearly interpreting the tone to his voice correctly when he replied, “Very well.  But once we are out of this room…”

“Then I will not touch you again…though once we are wed there is a small formality.”

“I will kiss you then, if that is what you mean.”

Gyles let him have another awkward grimace.  “There is, between Alphas and Omegas, a bit of a stronger bond.”

“Than a kiss?”  He sat up slowly, his body aching from the stress it had gone through for the past week.

“It is a bite.  A scar that an Alpha gives to his mate in order to show that they are taken.”

“It sounds painful.”

“One is normally given during a heat as it addles the mind enough for the Omega to forget the pain.  As I cannot be certain that you will have a heat close to our wedding, it is likely that I will simply have to bite you when you are well-aware of it.”

The Omega was frowning.  “Biting a man while he is impassioned sounds like the height of barbarism.”  He got up out of the bed, trailing the sheets behind him until he stared at the still water in the tub and finally let go of them, quickly getting in to avoid having to bare himself to Gyles’ eyes.

“Well then you can be dignified about it and rest easy that you knew fully that it was going to happen when it does.”  Gyles took a fresh rag and some soap and began to wash his small body in a brusque and professional manner which he noted caused the little one some annoyance as though he was certain the Alpha would be far more sensual in his ministrations.  “I will have the minister speak to you today if you’d like and you can present to him all of your quandaries and queries of human nature.  Then I’d like for us to wed next week.”

“Next week?”

“I hope you don’t mind a small ceremony.”

“If it could be only the two of us…”

“There must be some witnesses.”

“Mr. Whittle and Lilly then?”

Gyles nodded and handed Aymes the rag for him to wash up his private bits which he did while Gyles replied.  “That would be very well.  I suppose it would be terribly embarrassing for me to thank you for allowing me access to you during this time but I cannot help myself. I feel…very honored.”  He was more than honored, he was incensed with himself still for ever making that promise not to touch him.  It was unbelievable that he would do such a terrible thing to himself and he had half the mind to pull the boy right out of the bath and put his mouth to him right now if only to prove to himself that he could, for once, break his own word.

It wouldn’t happen.  He assisted in getting Aymes his clothes and held himself back even as the boy could not stand the tight fight of his brocade and thus had to wear only his shirt without a neckcloth or waistcoat.  His sweet scent, though not as potent as it once was, was still taunting the poor Alpha.  Before they left the room, he turned to the boy and offered him his wrist.

“A scent for you, if you would take it.  A sign that I am to be your mate before we are properly wed.”

“But…”

“It is customary.  You do not have to take it if you do not wish it.”

Aymes waffled a bit, uncertain and unsteady on his feet until he gently took Gyles’ wrist and rubbed it onto either side of his neck to apply his spicy Alpha perfume.  “It…it may be useful. Perhaps…”  With that, the boy opened the door and left, walking slowly as not to irritate his sore muscles.

Miss Fenwolf was careful about Aymes, greeting him joyfully as they crossed her path in one of the corridors.  With a small bow, she left him on his way and Gyles was quick to steer him outside and toward the chapel that was located a small walk down the lane.  The outdoors was a rich tableau of greenery that seemed far too bright for all the time they had just spent inside a warm, dark and humid room.  Once inside the chapel and out of the heat of the sun, he showed Aymes to the Reverend’s office and caught the man by his sleeve to chat with him just outside.

“I did wonder when you would have him come for my council,” Reverend Byrd smiled, keeping his voice down so that Aymes would not overhear.

“I apologize.  I should have had him come sooner.”

“Yes, you should have.”

“He is ruined.”

Byrd lifted a brow.  “Well if he’s from Haverton, that doesn’t surprise m—”

“No. I mean I’ve ruined him.”

“And now you want a wedding,” Byrd said, amusement playing with his mouth.

Gyles nodded quickly.  “Yes.  I do.  As soon as is feasible.”

“You’ve not marked him, I suppose?”

“No.”

“Fine. I’ll marry the both of you, but I don’t want you to become upset at me if the both of you aren’t as happy with each other as you wish.” He frowned, his Beta scent pricked with a small amount of frustration.  “I’m disappointed, Mr. Falborn.”

“You may be disappointed all you wish,” he grumbled.  “The moment you find yourself faced with a boy who’s thrown his arms around you and proclaimed you to be his fate while you’re mad with a rut—well then I’ll allow your judgment to touch my heart.  After all, he claimed that he was given the covenant between man and God and that it was a sign that he should be with me.  How am I supposed to argue something like that?”

“I suppose one can’t really argue with that.”

“Thank you.  I expect we’ll be married next week.”

“Such short notice…ah well, it cannot be helped.  Consider it done.” He sighed through his nose.  “I’ll talk to the little one, you collect yourself.  It seems as though you may be just as ragged as he is.”

He couldn’t argue it.  He felt raw, as though he had exposed far too many of his emotional nerve endings and was thus being seen out and about with half his wits flung far to field.  He walked over his lands, visited Prince and the colt and still he felt as though he were walking through a dream.  As though he may wake up at any moment to find that he had never chased any Omega out into a rainy orchard and had never spent three days in rut and tied solidly by his knot to a man he would forever consider his mate.

It seemed like it was a lifetime ago that he leaned against the fence and lamented his inability to find an Omega.  Now, he felt as though things had finally begun to fall into place and all through sheer happenstance.  But how much of it was coincidence and how much was the work of some deity?   _God?_  He looked upwards toward the clouds floating in the blue of the sky and his mind was toiling away.  Was it truly possible?  That there was some covenant there?  That the hand of God pushed and pulled in individual lives?  It seemed far too unlikely to Gyles that there could be someone or some _thing_ for that matter, caring enough about small details to send signals. Byrd, through all of his lessons and studying from the Bible had never once even suggested that the works of ordinary humans would be altered in such a manner.  He had always simply stated that a man’s relationship with God was decidedly personal and personal it would always remain.

It certainly seemed far more healthy to think of it that way rather than to think of cruelties to commit upon others who did not practice in the same fashion.  Gyles put his head down onto his arms as he leaned on the fence.  The gentle summer wind blew over him and rustled the trees nearby though the wind could not account for the soft snap of a twig within the brush and so the Alpha looked upward suddenly.

A small Indian boy was staring at him through the trees.

He smiled a patient little smile and partially raised up his hand in a greeting.  That particular little one was unfamiliar to him but it was not unheard of for them to pass through his lands.

Timidly, the soft bronzed beauty approached him, his eyes flitting this way and that until he was almost within ten feet.  Gyles remained perfectly still as not to spook him and was rewarded by the sweet floral scent of him.  The Omega carefully removed a bag from his shoulder and tossed it unceremoniously toward Gyles before he turned tail and fled back into the trees, melting into them as though he were a creature of the wilderness itself.

When he was certain that the boy was gone, he moved to the sack and picked it up, opening it to find quite a bit of food inside.  Fruits, berries, nuts, and late summer corn were wedged inside.  Puzzled, Gyles took the bag and wandered back to the house with it in his hand, finding Miss Fenwolf sitting with Lady Amanda on the large front porch.

Lady Amanda was the first to speak to him, her manner far more docile than he had expected.

“Is Mr. Morehill alright?”

Gyles nodded.  “As far as I know, he’s perfectly well.  I’ve left him with Reverend Byrd for the afternoon.  Perhaps he will procure some useful guidance.”

Miss Fenwolf nodded sagely.  “He is a smart little fellow.  I’m certain he will have his thoughts quite ordered after today.”

“I trust,” Lady Amanda mused, “that he is relatively undamaged.”

“In all the ways that count, yes.”

Miss Fenwolf gave a knowing chuckle.  “Are you going somewhere, Falborn? What’s that you have there?”

“I’m not sure.  I was tossed this by a little Indian along the southwest border of my lands.  Perhaps it is payment for something and I shall see one of the horses gone by the morrow.  If that is the case, I will be sorely disappointed should it be my little white colt.” Nonchalance about the matter was truly his only defense.  He could not fault the boy for taking refuge when their lands were stolen constantly and Gyles was one of the only landowners about who did not set dogs upon them at the sight of them.

“Do you not fear that there will be more than one?” Lady Amanda asked, her hand to her chest in worry.

“I am most assured that there are far more than one,” he replied.  “It does not bother me particularly.  They are wanderers, now more than ever if they were not before.  If they have the belief that no man can own land then how should I argue them?  There is no legal recourse for belief, is there?”

Fenwolf crossed her legs thoughtfully.  “You are the strangest Englishman, I swear it.”

“I must be.  Everyone does say that eventually.”

He saw the gazes of the women move behind him and he turned to find Aymes approaching.  As he walked toward the steps, Gyles felt his heart constricting.  All he wished was to take him into his arms and hold him forever and yet…and yet!  He held himself back with a deep breath in, clenching his fist around the material of the sack.

“Oh…” Aymes blurted.  “That’s mine…”

Gyles looked down at it, brown and dirty.  “Yours?”

“Yes, where did you get it?”

“A little Indian threw it at me.  How did you come to lose it?”

“He stole it from me…when I was on the road.”  He frowned.  “He’s given it to you?”

Gyles held it out.  “Probably because he sees me as your Alpha.  He’s filled it for you.  Perhaps as a repayment of sorts.  An apology? That is comforting, after all.  I suppose now I will not worry that one of my horses will go missing.”

Aymes took it, careful not to brush Gyles’ hand with his fingers.  “Thank you, Gyles…I…this is…very odd.  Do you think perhaps we could sit and chat for a little while?  The two of us?  I would like to come to know you more since I am to marry you.”

Miss Fenwolf grinned.  “I do love a good wedding.  Congratulations to you both; can I expect an invitation?”

Gyles peered down at Aymes, leaving the decision up to him.

With pink cheeks, the Omega nodded.  “I…I think I should like to invite you both, if you would wish to come.”

Lady Amanda let him have a smile that was warmer than most Gyles had ever witnessed from her.  “Of course we’ll come, Aymes.  We should be happy to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went and saw IT: Chapter Two and laughed so hard. I guess I shouldn't have expected any less from a movie with a clown in it. Unfortunately I got home kinda late because there was a power surge from a storm and the movie cut out in the middle and they had to reset the projectors manually. So that's why this is late.


	16. Chapter 16

It rained on the day of their wedding.  He was dressed in a simple yet elegant style that Mr. Whittle had assured him would be most handsome and the sky was a dullish medium gray that dropped big fat globes of rain down over the meadows and the fields.  Nervous energy coursed through him and he couldn’t imagine how in the world he might have the courage to stare up at Gyles and pledge the rest of his life to this man.  The memory of his touch would not soon fade and surely there would be another heat should he not have become with child from the first.  He almost hoped that there would be a child despite all his misgivings about a man’s pregnancy.

Those questions had been his most important that he’d asked Reverend Byrd. How could a man be with child?  How could this happen?  How had everything gotten so twisted up somehow?  The Reverend was a patient man and he had graciously allowed Aymes to visit him on a near-daily basis after their first meeting and up to this point where he would be wed.  Sitting in the stables with one of the small kittens in his lap and the Reverend beside him, he was trembling with nervousness.

“Forgive me for prying,” Byrd mused.  “How did you expect your wedding to happen?  When you were a boy?”

Aymes traced the curve of the sleepy kitten’s ear to watch it flick.  “I suppose I thought I wouldn’t worry much about it.  That it would all happen around me and that I would simply have to pay attention to my bride.”

“Then what is so different here?  Why are you so nervous?”

“I _am_ the bride.  Everyone will be looking at me.”

“There will not be so many there.”

“They know that I am not…”  He sighed heavily.  “They know that I am not _pure._ ”

Byrd chuckled.  “This obsession that so many of my brethren have with purity is a rotten little scam, isn’t it?  Who, really, cares whether or not you’re pure?  Not only that, Omega, but your purity was taken by the very man you marry today.  What is the difference?  You told me that you freely gave yourself to him after witnessing a covenant between yourself and God…and I will deliberately tell you now,” the Reverend leaned toward him, his gaze very serious indeed, “that if that is the case, then there is nothing on Earth that I can do to strengthen your existing marriage to this man.  From the moment you made that covenant with God, you were married.  'Tis nothing a mere mortal minister can do for it.”

Aymes gave a small pause.  “Oh…I…I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“Of course not.  I’m certain that your Reverend Shelton would hang me for heresy for saying half the things I have to you.  You weren’t raised to think of things in such a way.  But hark, Aymes, you’re a brilliant little Omega and there is absolutely nothing _wrong_ with you.  That you have been hidden away from the world and treated as though you were stupid and easily misled is the only crime that has occurred.”

“How do I come to believe you if I know that all the others in my life have lied so far?”

“You don’t have to believe me if you don’t wish to.  You’ve read your Beta Bible and I’ve given you a copy of our Bible untouched by the ministers of Haverton.”

“I am reading it…it is not _so_ different but…it is very enlightening.”  The scriptures that had once been pared down to their barest essentials were longer and involved quite a bit to do with the naturalness of the Alphas and the Omegas.  Long passages that Aymes had never seen before spoke of heats and ruts and their role in the world.  Aymes, for one, found it utterly fascinating. Now he knew, beyond a doubt, that he had been led astray by the men of Haverton and by his own circumstance.  “I feel,” he continued, “as though my eyes have been opened…but what of the next town? Are their Bibles different from yours?”

“No. It has long been noted that Haverton is…experimental.  They designed it that way, to suggest somehow that a colony of naught but Betas would be somehow free from moral strife.  Obviously, it doesn’t work that way.”

“Certainly not,” Aymes agreed.  “There is moral strife in spades.  It is so odd to me to see it from the outside…that you all know of it and allow it to continue.  It has hurt me…”  He gazed up at the man with imploring eyes.  “Yet it is allowed to happen…”

“They have hurt plenty with their arrogance, but it is not up to us to bear judgment against them.  You have, by the grace of God, escaped.  Now you are going to be married, officially, to a good and wealthy man of importance in the colonies and you’re going to bear him children and you’re going to be happy.”  He smiled a wide smile.

Aymes couldn’t help but allow himself to mimic that smile.  “You seem so sure.”

“Mr. Falborn is a good man.  He’s soft with you and I can tell that he was so uncertain of you at the first.  He didn’t give you to my counsel because he was afraid that you would reject everything and run from him.  He couldn’t bear it.  He loves you.”

Aymes’ heart squeezed and his stomach twisted in knots.  “Yes…he told me.  But I do not know if I can ever hope to reciprocate that emotion.”

“Love is not something that you feel in some cases,” Byrd explained, “it is something that you must act upon.  For some of us, you must _do_ love, you do not feel it.  And what is the difference between _being_ kind and _acting_ kind?   _Being_ in love or _acting_ in love?  Are they not the same outwardly?”

Aymes was frowning.  “Well no…but it is dishonest…”

“Would you say then that a man who feels no kindness should not be kind?  Is honesty held in higher esteem than decency?”

“No…”

“Then it should be quite easy for you to figure for yourself.  Tell Gyles that you love him.  Tell him that you love him until you, yourself, believe that you do.  Then you will.”

“How long will it take?”

“However long it has to.  You will be married for the rest of your lives. You’ve plenty of time to find out.”

Aymes stood, wandering the few feet to the stable door in order to peer out into the late summer rain.  The sky had darkened further and the rain was heavy over the meadows and the horses who merely stood about and grazed despite the inclement weather.  “I suppose you’re right.”

“I am right.  Now.  Let us somehow get back to the chapel and we’ll have a proper ceremony.  It is really too bad that we cannot have it outside.”

“Wait…one more thing, Reverend,” he said, turning about.  “He will bite me…”

The minister stood, brushing himself off.  “Yes.”

“Tonight?”

“Normally the bite is saved for a heat but since he cannot be certain that you will have one, I suppose it won’t matter.  Most mates find a method of… _distraction_ , despite.”

“You mean copulation.”

“Yes.” Byrd remained unaffected.

“He’s made me a promise not to touch me should I not be…fertile.”

“An odd promise for an Alpha, but he will still bite you.  I would guess that you will probably find the moment far more enticing to you than painful.  There is something about having a man’s lips on your throat that tingles the soul.”

Aymes shot him a bewildered stare and the Beta stared back at him, unperturbed despite the oddity of his own musing.  “You’ve had a man’s lips to your neck, Reverend?”

“Before I was a minister, I traveled with a band of colonists.  My husband was an Omega and very handsome indeed.  The pox took him like it took many others and from then to now I’ve devoted all I have to God.  Why not?  It is not as though I will love so strongly again.”  He smiled wistfully.

It was understandable, he thought, and it certainly explained how Reverend Byrd seemed so much more worldly than he had ever remembered any other minister being.  Together, they walked to the chapel in oilcloth cloaks and so Aymes was only the slightest bit damp when he was taken up the aisle of the chapel by Miss Fenwolf and delivered before the Reverend and his groom.

Looking downward, Gyles remarked softly, “Good little Omega, where are your shoes?”

He peered downward at his bare toes under his breeches and then looked up again.  “They are wet, sir, and uncomfortable.”

As his reply, Gyles simply took off his own shoes as Byrd patiently waited to begin, giving the minister a short nod when his own feet were bare on the thin chapel carpeting.

Fortunately, the Beta was in no way long-winded and as a result, the ceremony was short and Aymes found himself rather unchanged by the end of it. Perhaps Byrd had been right when he had suggested that Aymes was already forever tied to Gyles through the power of that rainbow—and the power of their nights together naked and panting and shaking with release.  He turned about to the happy clapping of their four guests, Mr. Whittle, Lilly, Miss Fenwolf, and Lady Amanda.  When all was said and done, Aymes was sipping sherry in a warm parlor alone with Gyles. Miss Fenwolf and Lady Amanda had sat with them for a time but found that it was of an hour to retire and so the two newlyweds were left alone while the rain continued to patter against the windowpanes.

“Do you feel different?” Aymes asked him suddenly, staring into the flickering of the fire.

“What do you mean?”  The Alpha was testing the carpet with his still-bared toes.

“I don’t feel different in the slightest.  Surely I must already be attached to you.”  He sipped his sherry and turned his head when the latch on the door opened and Mr. Whittle came to the side table and deposited some linens, a power packet, and a large ewer and bowl on a platter.  He looked at the items without a thought as to what they were for and peered, unthinking, at Mr. Whittle when the man gave him a slight bow before he left.

Gyles leaned his elbow on the arm of the settee and put his cheek against his fist, staring at Aymes where he stood.  “I’ve felt quite attached to you almost from the moment I picked you up from the road.”

He felt himself smile and he bashfully kept his eyes away from the Alpha’s warm stare.  “I find that so difficult to comprehend.  Why should anyone be attached to someone so quickly?”

“You are extraordinarily handsome, Aymes.  For a man like me, looking like this, you are a godsend.”

He blushed, his face heating considerably while he hugged himself.  “You flatter me.”

“Of course I do.  You deserve flattery.”  He got up, moving to the side table and picking up one of the linen cloths from the stack before he poured some of the water from the ewer into the bowl and dampened it. He held the damp folded square in one hand and took the powder packet in the other, holding it out to Aymes with nonchalance.  “I suppose a bit of this in your sherry might help.”

Aymes took it, frowning down at it.

“For the pain.”

The meaning of the delivery that Whittle had made suddenly dawned upon him and he took a step backward with his apprehension, his scent sharply turning toward fear.

“No need to be frightened, it won’t be terrible.  Here.”  The Alpha took the packet from him and dumped a bit of the powder straight into the glass in his hand, encouraging him to drink it after he’d swirled it together.

With a tremble in his hand, he took large gulps until his sherry was gone, the slight bitterness causing him to shiver and chirk his tongue.  As barbaric as he had thought it might have been to bite a man when he was impassioned and shuddering in his climax, he now couldn’t help but wonder if that was how he would prefer it.  Pain was never something one could simply walk into willingly.  With his head only a little clouded by the sherry, he asked softly, “Do you think I shall feel different after?”

“Perhaps, but probably not.  Must you appear as a soldier off to war, little one?”

“Is there any other way to appear?”

Gyles approached him and he flinched a tiny bit when the man untied Aymes’ neckcloth, skimming it across his skin until it was lying on the arm of the nearest chair.  “I suppose if you will not allow for any distractions, then this may be the only manner in which such a thing can be approached.”

“I don’t suppose it could be…pleasant…” he stated weakly.

“No. Not like this.”

“Only if you and I were…”  He trailed off.

“The poets say it is the pinnacle of pleasure in the height of a heat or in the midst of coitus.”

Aymes took in a deep breath when Gyles unfastened his waistcoat and pulled it from him.  Next were the top few buttons of his shirt.  With one finger, the Alpha gently tapped on either swoop of his shoulders.

“Which side would you prefer, little one?”

“I am to be given a choice?”

“Some Alphas, should they be rampant with need, choose for their mates. You have decided against that course and so you have the decision as to where you will be marked.  If you cannot choose a side, then I will simply place it where your neck meets your back, perfectly in the middle.”

His voice was warm and his reasoning was solid.  His functional eye shined with affection and Aymes was most certainly disarmed. Tentatively, he placed his fingers on the swoop of his left shoulder for it would be the natural direction in which Gyles tilted his head in order to kiss him and so it would be only easier for him to place a mark.

“Alright, little one.”  He moved aside the fabric of Aymes’ shirt, baring the whole of his neck and shoulder before he gripped the Omega tightly with one hand to the side of his head and the other upon his arm to keep him from struggle.  His Alpha scent washed over him, unable to calm the pounding of his heart.  Gyles' breath was hot over the sensitive flesh of his neck.  “Take a deep breath, Aymes.”

He did, finding it stuttering and strange to pull in but as he sought to think about it, his mind was blown to the four corners of the Earth as a sharp and burning pain lanced through him from Gyles’ teeth bearing down hard into him.  That breath transformed into a hideous and ripping scream.  He tried to struggle but was held fast, the Alpha’s fingers fisting into his hair to keep him still even as he shrieked in pain.  When he was finally released, the pain remained, throbbing and horrible and Gyles immediately laid him down on the settee with his head to the side and the wound exposed so that he could administer the cloth he had dampened.

Gyles’ lips were stained with red and he appeared very much an animal, Aymes thought blankly.  “I’m sorry it’s hurts, little one, but it is over now.”  He very gently dabbed at the mark and then, when he was satisfied with it, he bandaged him with the clean, dry linens. “Tomorrow morning we will let it breathe, but tonight we should keep it covered for your sherry and that powder will cause it to bleed.”

He felt tears well up and escape, warm on his face.

“Shhh, little Omega.  You’re alright.  Would you like to go to your chamber?”

Shaking, he saw his small hands balled in Gyles’ clothes and he heard his own weepy voice, odd to his ears, “N-No…  I don’t…I don’t w-want to leave you.”

A sparkling contentment flooded the Alpha’s earthy scent and he nodded sagely.  “Very well, little Aymes.  As you wish.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting it early morning so I can go sleep in a tent tonight after a bonfire. The best backyard camping adventures happen late summer when it's getting cold. >:]
> 
> I hope everyone enjoyed this sweet chapter! Leave me a comment if you liked it! :D


	17. Chapter 17

Aymes woke pressed against his husband though he was in his nightclothes and even draped in a robe.  So was Gyles who had him tucked against his chest in his large bed, shielding him as though protecting him from something.  Extracting himself without waking the Alpha was a bit of a chore but he managed it slowly.  He was torn—on one hand, he wished he would not have begged to stay with the man—that he would have recalled last night his resolution not to be touched.  On the other, he was grateful for the Alpha’s calming scent and his warmth and comfort.  In naught but his nightclothes and robe, he crept from the room, unwilling to face Gyles when the man awoke and unwilling to ring for servants in the master’s suite.

He carefully avoided Gyles for most of the rest of the day and the Alpha graciously allowed him his space.  Mr. Whittle had removed the bandages from his wound and allowed it air which he said would help it to scar properly.  Whether that was true or not, Aymes didn’t have the foggiest idea but he was told not to touch it and so he tried not to.  Every stretch of his neck seemed to reform the sting and the burn of it so he spent most of his morning and afternoon sitting in the damp orchard.  When it rained sporadically through the day, the sun shone through breaks in the dark clouds and he was blessed often with small fragments of colorful bows which heartened him.  He picked wildflower bunches and played with insects and sat against trees while trying to remember passages from the Bible that Reverend Byrd had given him.  In the moments when the birds ceased their singing, he whispered small prayers and thankfulness for each and every rainbow.

It was late afternoon when he wandered back toward the stables and overheard Mr. Whittle chatting with Lilly.  He had only recently returned from his day’s journey to the closer towns on business and his tone was somewhat alarmed.  Curious, Aymes crept to the door of the stables and pricked his ears.

“I’ve never seen them so bad.  It was a struggle before but it seems now that there is no salvaging it.  They’ve truly the intention to go through with it.”

“A shame,” Lilly sighed.  “All that over some silly ideas.  I could never imagine having such convictions.  You know how Godly I am, Mr. Whittle.  It cannot be righteous to kill a man for tolerance.”

Aymes felt an odd bubble of apprehension in his chest.  They were most certainly talking about Haverton…after all, Brind had seemed like such a welcoming little place and everyone had spoken to him as a friend.  Brind was the only other town that Mr. Whittle could have gone to this morning and been back by the afternoon.  No…surely it was Haverton and surely whatever poor soul was going to be hanged, Aymes knew them.

_Kill a man for tolerance._  His lip trembled.

Mr. Whittle continued, “Well by tomorrow evening, it’ll be done and there won’t be anything for it.  It is not as though an outsider can interrupt such things.  The community truly must handle the issue on their own.  They’ve their own laws and if they will ever change, it must come from one of their own.  Mark my words, Lilly: this is the beginning for them.”

“The beginning of the end, if you ask me.  Poor man’s a school teacher. Those little pups have heard it straight from him and they won’t soon forget it.”

_A school teacher?_  Aymes’ heart went straight into his throat.  Of course, he wouldn’t have been able to trust that Will would have simply taken up the live and let live sort of mentality that Aymes often did.  He was reckless and undignified in most things he did and honestly it was a trial to even wonder how the man had become a teacher in the first place.  He was contrary in every sense and he would never have taken Aymes’ expulsion from Haverton lying down.

_When he said he should have come with me, I should never have said no. I should have let him come with me.  I could have saved him then from this fate and now…now?_  He stood up straighter.  Perhaps he could save him yet.  He could sneak into the chapel and steal the keys to the cells they kept the blasphemers in and he could free him. They kept the damned things above a high shelf in the rectory’s broom closet and they were not overly hard to find once one knew how to get about inside.  He had gone many times and there were ways to come at the church from the back which would be difficult for any to spot him even in the daylight and especially now when the grass about it was high.

He was off running before he knew it.  His heart was pounding in his chest and his feet were fast and light.  He climbed quickly over wooden fences and ran like a summer breeze through the reeds and grasses near streams and in meadows.  He loosely followed the road, his blood pumping hard through his veins as his mind focused only upon one goal and one goal alone.  By the time he saw the chapel in the distance, the golden shine of the sun made the white paint of it glow over the fields.

Aymes lurched off the road toward the treeline and followed it until he was hidden in the tall barley that lay behind the chapel.  It was within the swaying gold that he gave pause and swept in long breaths through his mouth, claiming each gasp with a burning resolve.  He was going to free Will.  He was going to flee with Will and he was going to take responsibility for all he had done in Haverton.  He would not let his friend die for defending him—he would sacrifice himself before he would allow such a thing to happen.  Inching his head up he peered about, taking note of any movement he saw which was precious little.  There were some villagers milling about but most were heading back and forth over the main road and none would see him if he kept into the back door of the chapel.

He made his moves decisively, leaving no room for either failure or mistakes born of a tentative resolution.  Pulling open the wooden back door to the chapel, he moved into the dark storage room that smelled of old hymnals, wasting Bibles, and damp wood.  He crept over the floor, avoiding those boards he knew would squeak until he came to the door to the hallway.  From here it was a left, a right up some stairs, and then another left to the broom closet that held the heavy ring of keys that could unlock nearly any public office or building in Haverton.  There weren’t many who knew of its existence, but Aymes had practically lived in this little chapel.  He knew where _everything_ was.

He took a deep breath before he stepped out into the hall and quickly made his way up the stairs, aware suddenly that there were footsteps behind him.  At the broom closet, he eased in and closed the door, holding his breath in the hopes that whoever was wandering by would simply keep going.

It was a wasted effort.  Dark shadows of feet stopped just outside the broom closet and Aymes heard a discreet set of sniffs from outside the door.  He’d been in such a rush and so confident in his ability to find where he was going that he hadn’t considered his own scent—far stronger than that of a Beta and likely tinged with the tones of Gyles which gave it a power he hadn’t counted on.  Oh for the love of God.  Oh for mercy.  He would give anything to be a Beta again.  He would give anything for all of this terrible nonsense not to have happened at all.

_But I would still like to have kept him…Gyles._  

The door opened and Aymes met the blank stare of Reverend Shelton with a blank stare of his own.  The man appeared to be inordinately confused, the misfiring of all of his thoughts apparent in the way in which his upper lip twitched without his knowledge.

_Is this where you are brave, little Aymes?  Or will you let them take you as you have let everyone else?_  It was Gyles’ voice in his head, echoing through the chambers carved by a lifetime of shame and guilt.   _Is this where you fight?_

He grabbed the heavy ring of keys from where it hung on the wall of the closet and before Shelton could react, he shoved the man hard, slamming him against the wall of the hallway before he bolted down the stairs and fled through the large room of the chapel proper. Bursting from the large doors, he skidded over the wet stone and mud of the road and turned sharply toward the stone edifice that held prisoners convicted of heresy.  His heart was uncontrollable, fluttering like a mad bird in his chest as he breathed shallow and panicked through his teeth.  He couldn’t hear the Reverend shouting from the door to the church but he didn’t have to.  Everyone knew from the jangle of those keys in his hands and the sharp, bloody scent of his Omega anger what he was about.  He barely saw the men and women who saw him with slack jaws as he ran.  He couldn’t pay them any mind as he narrowly avoided a bewildered town guard and jammed one thick iron key into the corresponding lock upon the door of the stone prison.

Located just off the center of town, it was customary for those who wished to mock the accused or convicted to spit through the narrow bars, unstopped by the guard who found the humiliation something of a novelty.  It was open, exposed, and when Aymes pried open the iron door, he was watched by perhaps ten to twenty of his former kinsmen who stood around befuddled.  Yanking it closed behind himself, he shoved the key into the lock from the other side and heard the clang of the tumblers falling back into place.  He left the key stuck for he did not know how many copies of it there were and then turned around, his back resting on the cold stone beside the door.

Shelton’s winded voice came to him through the small barred window.

“ _Aymes! Aymes Morehill!  You’ve come to your doom if you do not open this door!_ ”

He bellowed back with all the spite and rage he had ever prevented himself from feeling. “ _You’ve come to your doom if you try to stop me!_ ”

“ _Aymes! AYMES!_ ”

He breathed hard through his teeth and stared down at the man he’d known would be here.  Will Goodfellow was pale, dirty, and his once-vibrant eyes were lackluster and unfocused.  He sat in stale rushes and seemed almost to look through Aymes rather than at him.  His hands lay on his lap, his knuckles raw and bloodied from his hands and fingers having been caned over and over and the bottoms of his feet bore the same terrible fate.

“Will…” he breathed, coming to his knees beside his friend.  He touched the man’s cheek and found him cold.  “Will…I’ve come to rescue you.”

“Lot of good you’ve done,” he replied listlessly.  “Now we’re both in here.”

“You once told me that it is barbaric to wield the sword of God.  It is, you know.  You were right.”

His eyes sharpened just a tad.  “What are you doing here, Aymes? You’re going to be hanged right beside me.”

“I am the reason you’re here.”

“No you’re not…I’ve been like this for as long as ever.”  His face was pained.  “I have been reckless and dangerous to them. Remember…remember my ultimatum.  Should I wake on the morrow, I will assume myself forgiven.  There will be a morning I do not wake…for the sword of God will have cut me down and I cannot hope it to be while I sleep.”

Aymes pinched the man’s cheeks until Will lifted a hand to push at him. “This is not William Goodfellow to whom I speak! I wish to speak with my friend!”

“I cannot be the one that always shines for you, Aymes!  I am in my dark hour!  I am going to be hanged and now the word of it has sent my best friend into the jaws of God with me!  You believe that you are to blame for my death and so it will be that I am to blame for yours!”

“Do not think it.  I have come to you willingly.”

Will reached up with a trembling and wounded hand to gently turn Aymes by his jaw.  “What is this?  Someone has harmed you?”

With blood to his face, he warmed.  “I was not harmed, though it did hurt.”  He took Will’s hand.  “There is something I should tell you…that Haverton is not much like the rest of the world.”

“I should hope not,” he replied dimly.  “Else I would have no hope at all for humanity.”

“I will take you from here.  I will show you.”

Will’s smile was placating.  “Oh, Aymes…I wish I had your bravado…and you were always the milder of the two of us.”

Aymes grinned.  “I have learned that it is not in my nature to be mild. I feel like fire, Will.  Unrestrained and consuming.  I feel as though I will burn through anything should I only touch it.”

“Bold of you.”

“Omega of me.”

Will’s brows twitched downward in question.

“I am far more than anyone here can imagine, Will.  I understand why they should be afraid of me and even more why they should fear those that were made for me.”

“Made for you?”

“Alphas. They are huge, impossibly strong, their voices are powerful in themselves and their scents are burning.”

“Demons?”

“Sometimes it seems it…but when they are gentle, they hold to it as if leashing a beast.  Understand, Will, they are as much human as you and I.  It is nature.  It is natural.”

Will looked at him, his eyes clearing, “I believe you.”

“Then trust me.”  He stood up, coming closer to the door.  “Reverend!” he shouted, seeing the man himself come to the small bars.  He continued in a loud voice, “I will take Goodfellow and I will go with him and that is the end of it.”

“You are not in the position to be making bargains, Morehill,” the man growled back.

“It is you who cannot afford to ignore me, Reverend.  You cast me out into the wilds with the hope that I would be lost to them but you did not consider that I would be _found_.  That I would discover what it means to be what I am!  That I would find out that you would murder my friends for their defense of my kind!”

“You’ll be hanged with him.  That was the sentence should you ever return, Morehill.  You’ll be next to him on the gallows come morn.”

“Should you not let me free tonight, Reverend, I should half expect that you will not see the dawn to watch me.”

“You think the devil has power here?” came his retort.  “Just as there is no honor among thieves, there is no honor in the realms of the devil!”

“And yet I can smell your fear,” Aymes spat, coming close to the door to stare into the Reverend’s eyes.  “Leave me here, Reverend.  Do it. _Leave me and wait for your reckoning_.”

For a moment, Aymes thought that he was to be freed.  That the man would agree and allow he and Will to limp off into the wilds.  The hope that such a peaceful resolution would occur was dashed entirely when the man turned and gave orders to the guards to kill them if they sought to escape in the night.  Then he walked away, leaving the townsfolk chattering about, still puzzling over the events which had occurred.

Will weakly spoke, his Beta scent rife with grief, “You are far braver than you were before you left, my friend.”

“I am no braver,” he replied, “I am only angry.”

“It’s about time you were that.”

“Well it’s easier to be angry for someone else than yourself,” he explained, turning around.

Will sat up, wincing as he did so.  “So what’s your plan, Aymes?  What is this reckoning?”

He grimaced and scratched the back of his head.  “Well the real plan is to…uh…well I suppose it’s to pray.”

“Dear Lord,” Will sighed.

“That’s a good start at least.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some of Aymes' spirit! :D Knew he had it in 'im.


	18. Chapter 18

Gyles didn’t give a thought to having not seen Aymes for the morning and afternoon.  It was likely that the boy would spend most of his time avoiding him, having been embarrassed to allow the Alpha so much intimate closeness the night before after their bonding.  He went about his daily chores and was interrupted from his own thoughts only briefly when he managed to stumble upon Fenwolf and Lady Amanda in the stables where they were quite _involved with_  each other. Unnoticed, thank God, he slipped out the door from which he came and had a good light chuckle about the whole circumstance as he walked back toward the house.

By the time he was curious as to the whereabouts of little Aymes, he was taking supper and was frowning at Aymes’s empty seat in the warmth of his cozy dining room.  He’d had them prepare quite the celebratory meal for the two of them, as one did not normally become claimed when one was fully conscious of it and he wished, of course, to spoil the little Omega in any fashion that would suit.  Without eating, he got up and wandered to the kitchen where usually he found Aymes helping to do some menial task or another.  With a cursory glance from the door, however, he found that Aymes was not present.

“Lilly?” he asked in the doorway to the kitchen.

She squeaked and turned about, dropping the wet rag in her hand into the soapy water.  “Yes, master?”

“Have you happened to see Mr. Morehill today?”

Lilly thought for a moment then warily replied, “You mean to ask if I’ve seen…Mr. _Falborn_ …?”

He smiled, warming a bit.  “I suppose I do mean to ask that.  Rather silly of me.  Of course, Lilly.  When I woke, he was gone and I’ve not seen him all day.  Is he taking supper in his room?”

“No, master.  We’ve not seen him either.”

The first pang of worry struck him but it was soft and deep within his chest.  His scent must have altered for she offered her comfort.

“Do not fret, Master Falborn, he is probably just out in the orchard.  He spends many hours there reading at times.  When he is hungry, he will fetch his supper.”

“Or I shall fetch him,” Gyles said, giving her a small nod before he crossed the kitchen and exited from the back door, startling a few of the servants who were smoking and reading their letters.  He walked briskly through the cooling dusk air as fog descended over the landscape, obscuring the ground and weaving between the reaching trees of the orchard with graceful tendrils of white.  Evening cast an eerie gloom over the landscape and with not even a hint of Aymes’s scent among the apples and the wildflowers, Gyles grew impatient and increasingly distracted as he searched the rows.

“Aymes?” he said, in a distinct tone.  “Aymes?”  He repeated himself a small bit louder again and again until his heart was squeezing his in chest and he could feel a tight lump in his throat.  There was something hideously wrong.  There was something so terribly wrong that he could feel it in his very bones and more specifically in his _teeth_.  As if sinking them into Aymes’s flesh the night previous had somehow linked them with his very blood.  He felt the urge to bite over again and deep ire was kindled in his soul.

_Where is my mate?_

He turned and bolted to the house and when he was within a decent distance, he bellowed in a hard _Alpha_ howl for Whittle who arrived at the kitchen door more disheveled than Gyles had ever seen him.  His waistcoat was gone and his shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, his sleeves rolled up as if he had been in the midst of a more laborious task than his usual chores.

“Master,” he greeted, somewhat breathless, “What is it?!  What’s wrong?” There was a shade of panic in his eyes as he took in Gyles’s state even as the Alpha quit running and came to the door, huffing and leaning upon the door frame.

“Aymes. Where is he?  Have you seen him?”

“Not all day, I’m afraid.  Has no one?”  He looked around at the wary faces of the servants and none of them could say that they had.  His expression was nothing short of alarmed as he turned to stare at Gyles.  “A freshly marked boy with his past…you don’t suppose he’s off for some kind of escape…”

“No. I can’t think it.  He’s a quiet sort and one bound by his own honor,” Gyles replied, his fingers gripping the door frame so hard that the wood began indenting from the pressure.  “Someone must have taken him or…”

Lilly gasped, her hands coming to her mouth as she whirled to stare at Whittle, her eyes filling to the brim with copious amounts of tears which spilled over immediately.  She and Whittle seemed to share some sort of grave understanding before Whittle turned back to Gyles and made sense of her tears.

“Master, forgive us.”

Gyles felt a cold rage descending into him and his hands fell to Whittle’s arms, his grip punishing enough for the Beta to flinch.  “ _Where is my mate?_ ”

“He’s likely to have gone to Haverton!” he stumbled out quickly. “Forgive us, Master Falborn.  He must have heard Lilly and I early this morn.  We spoke of a hanging they were to have.  A school teacher.  Perhaps the little one knew him.  Perhaps he’s gone to…to do something…”

Gyles let him go suddenly and stood up straight, his mind rushing through how many hours it had been since morning.  How many times over his little Aymes could have been murdered by senseless, cultish followers of some bastardized religion.  “He’s been…he’s been gone since morning?  I’ll…”  He felt that cold rage smooth out to fill his whole being and tingle in his fingertips with numbness.  “I’ll kill them all…”

“Master,” Whittle tried.

“If they’ve hurt him…if they’ve touched him…I’ll gut them all.  I’ll murder every last one of them, so help me God.”

The Beta nodded severely.  “So be it.  I’ll fetch Prince and I’ll come as well if you have need of me.”

His blood was teeming and thrumming in his veins when he ran upstairs and opened his trunk at the end of his bed to fetch his father’s sword from his time in the militia.  Fastening the leather belt about his waist, he resolved that should he bring his love back with him, the boy would never go a day again without knowing how to wield his own. Storming down the stairs, he couldn’t wait for Whittle to saddle Prince for him so he went to the stable himself, his hands trembling with his anger and his scent filling every space in the stables with a wildfire of smoke and flame.  He saddled his own damned horse and was astride before Whittle had even finished with the other. Impatient, he set out alone, knowing that the Beta would eventually catch up to him though not quickly as Prince was a beastly stallion and the fastest of all his horses.

He thundered to the road and steered Prince toward Haverton with murder still on his mind and but one name coming to his memory—that which Aymes had spoke of in the past and extensively with Reverend Byrd. If anyone was responsible for his husband’s death—it would be the _minister_ and that, he could not abide.  The cool wind whipped through his graying hair and pulled some strands loose from his ponytail as he and the white stallion flew through the heavy fog with nothing but blowing horse breath and hoof beats to mark their approach.  Mud from the dirt road flew behind him and he found himself growing ever hotter in his ire with each and every mile he passed and when finally he saw the white of the chapel bell tower he felt pure fire in his soul.  If they had even laid one finger upon the boy he had claimed as his own, he would rip them all apart limb from limb.  He had never been counted among violent Alphas before but tonight was the night he would gather every ounce of his strength for his revenge.

He came to the center of the village and circled the square once before he roared with all the force of the natural and pure _Alpha_ within him.

_“SHELTON!”_

He could hear his deep and resounding cry vibrate and echo, bouncing from the walls and with its strength rattling the windowpanes.  His _Alpha_ voice reverberated through the whole of the town and sent sleeping songbirds, doves, and crows from their nests in trees and bushes, every prey animal about scurrying for cover while dogs leaped over fences and fled through the fields.

_**“SHELTON!”** _

He circled Prince again, his breaths hard and heavy through his nose and his gritted teeth, through the moist cool air creating an unearthly steam from both he and the stallion.  Most of the homes and buildings remained dark and shut tight but he could feel the simmering fear of those within as he circled again and again, agitated and ready for a fight.  After what seemed an age, a small stuttering light of a candle came from the church and an aging thin man emerged from the wooden doors with his back straight.  He stood upon the steps, unwilling to relinquish his high ground though Gyles upon Prince fair towered above him anyway.

“ _You,_ ” the Alpha growled with his voice’s edge unleashed and savage, unsheathing his sword and holding it steady out toward the man who shivered in the night’s cold.  “ _You’ve something that_ _ **belongs**_ _to me._ ”

The Beta stared at the tip of the sword pointed toward him and the flame of his candle betrayed the tremors in his hand.  “You know me.”

“ _I know of you and you will give me what I want._ ”

“The Devil…you demons…you have no power here.”

“ _You think me a demon?  A white rider should never be considered so low._ ”

He visibly swallowed but set his jaw.  “You fancy yourself a conqueror.  I bid you to take your mount and climb these hallowed steps anointed by my own hand should you consider yourself enough to conquer God!”

Gyles felt his lips retract from his teeth in a vicious grin as he urged Prince forward slowly until the first of his hooves thudded down on the first of the steps.  When neither he nor the horse burst into flames, the Reverend took several steps back until he was flat against the doors of the chapel.  Gyles sheathed his sword and then swung his leg to dismount, gracefully swinging himself onto the steps and closing the distance between he and the Reverend with one movement.  As an Alpha, he loomed tall and ominous over the comparatively feeble Beta who fought against cowering but could not withstand the compulsion as Gyles’s incinerating Alpha scent consumed his senses.

“P-Please…” the man whispered.

“ _Please?_ ” he hissed, “ _You dare beg me for anything?_ ” His large hand pulled the candle from the man’s hold and his other gripped him about his throat, lifting him while he weakly grasped at Gyles’s wrist.  With the man dangling in his grip, he opened the door to the church and entered.  “ _Should I not walk within your house of God?  Or is God not here with you, Reverend?_ ”  He shook him lightly, his ire barely leashed.  “ _Where. Is.  My._ _ **Mate**_ _._ ”

He could no longer trust himself not to crush the man’s windpipe so he tossed him to the floor between the pews, his body landing with an organic thump.  The Reverend hastily struggled to sit up, dragging himself further from Gyles’s looming form.  “He’s…he’s in the prison-house!  Please, sir demon!  Please!”

“ _I am no demon, you ignorant prick!  I am a man, flesh and blood, and I am an ALPHA!_ ”  All of his rage boiled over in the cold darkness of the rectory as silver moonlight streamed in through the windows and gentle tendrils of fog crept through the open door behind him.  “ _Your religion has spread enough hate and violence—who needs demons when you have such blood-thirsty angels?  Well I will show you what a blood-thirsty Alpha looks like should you have even touched him._ ”

“He is untouched!” the man shrieked, “He has not found harm from us!”

“ _He has found enough already,_ ” Gyles spat.  He lifted one of the oil lamps from its position upon the wall and threw it down so that the glass shattered and the oil spilled before he tossed the lit candle to it and watched the blaze erupt.

“NO!” Shelton screamed, staggering to his feet as Gyles turned about and exited to mount Prince and ride again until he could find the prison in which his husband was locked.  It was no feat, of course, for he found it easily as a forbidding gray edifice that more closely resembled a mausoleum than a prison with a wide and heavy iron door. Whatever guard was set to watch it was long gone with the snarling sound of an enraged Alpha’s voice and so, as the flames from the burning chapel began to grow behind him, he found the dark door illuminated through the incessant fog by orange flickering glow.

“Aymes?” he asked, his voice low and soft.

For a moment, his heart sank into his belly and he thought that he would have to slaughter every man in Haverton for this crime…but then, the burn of his anger faded with the sight of the iron door inching open and a small pale hand curling about the edge.

“G-Gyles?” His eyes were glittering in the firelight as he stared up at the Alpha and held a heavy ring of keys in his small fist.

He nearly leaped from the stallion’s back and gathered Aymes in his arms, practically crushing him in his need to be close and hold him. “Aymes, good God!  I know I’ve made a promise to you not to touch you but by heaven, you try me.  I cannot bear to let you go now, even for a moment.  I will slay every last man on earth who should dare to harm you!”  He knew he seemed frantic, rubbing his scent over his mate with abandon as Aymes gripped him and very lightly struggled.

“Gyles, thank God you’ve come.  Please listen to me.”

“I am listening, little one.  Speak and do not mind me,” he told his mate, still scenting him thoroughly.

“My friend, my only friend, Will…he is in need of our help.  Please tell me you will take mercy upon him as you have taken mercy upon me.”

“I would not think to turn away any who are of such noble blood as to be threatened by Haverton with a hanging.”

Aymes’s scent was happy, overjoyed even and Gyles pulled him back to look at his beautiful young face and make certain that he was perfectly unharmed.  Hoof beats sounded behind him and he turned, watching Whittle on his brown mare gallop toward them.

To Aymes, he asked gravely, “Is he fit to ride?”

“He will have to be.  I see you’ve not taken mercy upon the Reverend’s livelihood.”

“The man thinks me a demon, it’s likely that all the rest must think so as well…I suppose the fear of Hell is one’s own sentence should they be deprived an education on the peculiarities of an Alpha.”

“For certain, your voice was that of a devil.  I’d not thought it could reach such strength.  I near did not have the courage to face you…not until you said my name.  It was as though a spell had broken from me.”

Whittle dismounted and Aymes led them inside the small prison where they found the Beta there.  In the dark, it was impossible to note how badly he had been mistreated but from his scent, his pain was apparent.  Gyles hummed with rekindled anger and Whittle spoke.

“I’ll take him.  He’ll fare better on my mare than upon your stallion. Ride with Aymes and I’ll follow behind.  Though to take from them their judgment…”

“I have already taken from them their church and their peace of mind. Should they truly think me a demon, then taking their convicted heretic down to Hell with me should let them save the rope.”  He lifted Aymes easily, sweeping him off his feet while Whittle took to the Beta.  Time would tell how the man would recover but for now, his heart could only focus upon the fact that his mate was safe again with him.  Every instinct inside him screamed to protect and to hold and in this moment, he could not deny it despite his promise from before.

 _I seem to be particularly bad at keeping that promise lately,_ he thought wryly as he looked back to make certain that Whittle and Will were secured and ready before he signaled to Prince that a walk would do.  When he was home again, he would have to relinquish his hold on his mate who was currently between his thighs in the saddle, tucked against him and blessing him with that beauteously sweet Omega fragrance that haunted him in all his nights spent alone.  The sway of the saddle and the gentle rub from Aymes’s rump on his groin over time grew nearly unbearable but he kept his poise and even attempted to shift the Omega away from him as not to alarm him with his arousal.  His scent, eventually, was what Aymes noted clearly.

“I apologize, Alpha,” he murmured softly.

“Do not,” Gyles replied.  “It is only that I was afraid that I’d lost you forever and now that I have you here, my instincts are wild for you.  You are only just mated to me, after all.  Think nothing of it, it will subside.”

The Omega let loose a quiet chuckle and Gyles raised a brow.  “I did not mean for…for _that_. I should have told you immediately.  I had not a thought in my head when I ran to Haverton to save my friend and I should have thought to tell you at once.  We _are_ married now, after all, and it is so difficult of me to think of myself as any less than my own person.”

Gyles felt a stab of emotion in his heart.  “You are certainly not less than your own person, little one.  You’ve no reason to answer to me, despite marriage.  Admittedly, my thoughts upon marriage must differ greatly from those in Haverton or even in England, but my little Omega, you must not think yourself any less than your own man simply for having been bonded to me.  Have I given you reason to think so? I am greatly sorry for that, if I have.”

“No…no…”

“Aymes,” he cooed, “you are by far the most bewitching little creature I have ever met.  I am at your disposal.  I am at your whim.  You may change your mind a thousand times and I will love you the same. Should you ever wish for me to be close to you for a walk in the orchard or a warmth in your bed, I will consider it a great blessing to be near to you.  But you must not think yourself subservient to me, ever.  You do not answer to me.”

“But you have rescued me…”

“And you think you are obligated to me?  One does not reward a fish for swimming.  An Alpha is bound to to protect his mate—there is no other option.  I will not let you believe that you owe me anything, for it was in my vows to you to love and cherish you to the end of my days.”  He smiled and nuzzled the top of Aymes’s head.  “If that means that I am to burn down every church in New England, then I will do it gladly.”

He felt Aymes soften against him, his scent sweetening as they turned up the dirt drive toward the manor, ready for rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a little toasty Wednesday Night and forgot to update this. I am the worst.


	19. Chapter 19

“Are you truly married?” Will asked, propped up on a plethora of plump pillows in one of the many chambers of Gyles’s manor.  It was late in the morning and sunlight was streaming in through the dust motes that leisurely floated about in the air, tossed sometimes by the slight breeze that rustled the sheer curtains from the window.  In the light, his appearance was that of a ragged vagabond as all of his bruises were revealed and the extent of the damage was apparent—his back was torn from lashings and canings, his clothes unsalvageable from the blood that had stained it.  Cleaned and dressed in a dressing gown, he was tucked snugly into his bed to recover under the care of the attentive Lilly.  “Married to a man?”

“It is not as strange as it must sound to you.”  He sat with his friend, in only his night clothes and his dressing gown himself.  As Will’s hands were bandaged, Aymes helped his friend to his eggs and breakfast meats, lifting his fork to his lips to encourage his eating.  “My body is designed to bear children.  I didn’t know quite what to think of it at first either, but that is simply how it is.  My fever is merely when I am fertile.”

“Like a dog,” Will mused wryly.

Aymes felt his face warm.  “I suppose so, yes.  But you must understand, Will.  The world is so much different outside of Haverton.  I hardly know how to explain everything to you…and I hardly know how to explain that I have married a _man_. I suppose you must have been wrong when you told me that I was not a man of vice…for surely I cannot claim that now.  An Omega’s heat is such a _powerful_ state. I was…very much in need.”

“You told me that he was made for you.”

“He is…well, Alphas are made for Omegas.  Shelton must be convinced that Gyles is very much a demon.”

“He seems one.  Good God, I had the slightest look at his face, Aymes…”

The Omega sighed.  “He is far more than his appearance, Will.  His eye…well, I hardly even notice it.”

“All the better for that.  You _are_ married to him.  Thank God I am not.”  With a serious glint in his eye, he leaned over and stated low, “Should he harm you, I will slit his throat while he sleeps.  Tell me now that he does and we will escape together.”

Aymes giggled.  “He does not harm me.  In fact, he’s a quite forgiving husband.  I ran to Haverton and risked a hanging and he is not even cross with me.”

“Impressive.”

“You do not sound impressed.”

“Well, should I have known that it was possible to marry you myself, I would have done so merely to keep you out of harm’s way.  I truly should have gone with you when you left!”

“You’re not an Alpha.”

“So? I’m a man, aren’t I?  What is the difference?  And don’t say it is his height, I will be salted about it forever.”

Gyles’ rumbling voice interrupted them from the doorway and he stood tall and handsome in the morning light, his mostly-gray hair swept up into a small messy bun away from his face.  His eye shimmered with his playfulness.  “I’m afraid it’s a little more than my height…though Beta men are most definitely allowed to marry Omegas. This Omega, however, is spoken-for.”

“Well damn you,” Will grumbled, shooting a reproachful look at the Alpha and fumbling over his words when Aymes gasped lightly at his language.  “He’s yet to prove to me that he deserves you.  You’ve been my best friend since we were little and here he is having _bitten_ you like some kind of a savage who licks an apple to proclaim it as his own.”

“Something I recall you were very much wont to do,” Aymes retorted, amused. “Aside, Will, Gyles saved my life…twice now.  And yours as well. I would say that does something to prove his merit.”

“No need to take up arms to fight for me, little one,” Gyles cooed. “Will is welcome here for as long as he likes.  If I cannot prove myself to him in a night then perhaps it will take me a lifetime…or perhaps he should take Whittle’s word for it.”

Will perked.  “Yes!  Mr. Whittle!  Here I’ve come to learn that the man has enough guile to convince the whole of Haverton that he’s the master of this business and here he is merely the guise for you.  How bold of you, sir, to send your servants to the front for you!  I suppose you’ve lost Haverton from your business now, haven’t you?”

“Should they have seen Whittle last night, surely I have.  I’ll not send him again, in case.  The village will simply have to find another supplier for their horses.  I say, was there not a single one of you who was tasked to find trade with the outside?  I recall Whittle having simply stumbled over that village.”

“We are self-sufficient,” Will mentioned coolly.

“We?” Gyles asked, raising his brows.  “You still hold loyalty to them? Despite what they’ve done to you?”

“I have no other home.  I know nothing else.”

The Alpha sniffed.  “Spend some time here, Beta.  You will learn quickly how deeply you’ve been deceived.”  Gyles left then, leaving the Beta and the Omega alone together again.

Will huffed.  “I don’t like him.”

Aymes blinked.  “You don’t?”

“He’s arrogant.”

“He’s an Alpha.  That is, I understand, how they are.”  He picked at the dark counterpane, pulling off a bit of stray horse hair that had been clinging to the fabric.  “He’s reason to be so confident.  He’s a well-positioned man in the colonies and he’s got a range of influence in the region.  Oh how small Haverton seems now that I’ve been to the other towns with Mr. Whittle and I’ve come to see Gyles for what he is…”

“And you for what you are?”

“Yes…though I still struggle sometimes.  Even now, I could be with child and it seems like such a strange idea.  It is so bizarre to consider…”

Will’s mouth was flat.  “I cannot think of you in such a way, Aymes.”

“Round?”

“No…” His voice lowered.  “ _Sensual._ ”

“You say it as though I am some sort of lowborn prostitute.  I have stumbled into a place here where I am comfortable at the very least and I have—”

“A lover.”

“— _protection_.”

“A man who’s defiled you,” Will said.

Aymes rolled his eyes.  “Where is your high spirit?  Where is the man who thought it wrong to wield the sword of God?  I am _married_ by a minister to this man and I have been assured that there is nothing the matter with me for my…my… _needs_.”

Will let go of a hearty sigh.  “I do not think you evil for your _needs._ I think you unfortunate for having fallen into the mire of a marriage with… _him._ ”

Aymes felt the weight of Will’s disapproval and it was heavy in his heart. Was there nothing that could redeem an Alpha in the eyes of his best friend?  What had it been that had so offended him?  Aymes contemplated such questions after Will had gone to sleep, rest the only cure for that which ailed him.  The Omega strolled about, properly dressed now save for his bare feet as he felt the oddest need to feel the warm grass between his toes.

“Master Aymes?” Whittle asked him in a spare moment.  “Is there something I can do for you?  Perhaps luncheon?  Master Falborn is in his study at current, perhaps you and I could interrupt him for a bite?” Grimacing at his own choice of words, still he awaited Aymes’ reply.

“Yes…I suppose I am a bit hungry.”  He followed the servant into the house and aided him in packing up a small picnic that Aymes himself took to the study.  Easing his way in while the door was ajar, he found his husband busily scribbling over parchment his business letters and other correspondence.  When the Alpha caught sight of him, he raised the small basket that held platters wrapped in cloth and filled with smoked meats, cheeses, and a few poached eggs left over from that morning’s breakfast.

“It’s good to see you, Aymes.”

“And it is good to see you as well, Gyles.”  He smiled.  “Despite everything that happened yesterday, I feel that it was so long ago and so far away.  Perhaps we can forget that it ever occurred.”

“Save for your friend who will be with us.”

Aymes felt his brows knit.

“You’ve a terrible habit of letting me smell your worries.  He doesn’t like me.  It’s a natural thing.  He could have been my romantic rival, of course.”

“I have never harbored love for him.”

“And I have not accused you of it.”

Trembling a bit, he set the basket down on a spare corner of the desk and moved about until he could see the whole of Gyles’ large Alpha body, taking in his wild strength as if he were a languid lion tensed and ready to pounce from his seat.  For one insane moment, Aymes felt as though he wished only to toss himself into the Alpha’s arms and surrender to him, body and soul.  He cleared his throat, attempting to rein himself and his bizarre salacious thoughts in.

_If only I were in heat.  I would like him to take me here…where his scent is strong._

He blinked, appalled at his own thoughts.  “Alpha…I thought perhaps we could take our luncheon here while you finish your letters.”

“Kind of you, little one.  Are you feeling alright?”

“Yes. I am perfectly fine.”

Gyles raised one brow and Aymes suddenly came to the realization that there was a slight spice to his own scent—arousal.

“I…I…uhm…”

“Though I am curious to an explanation, I do not require one,” he supplied helpfully before he gracefully changed the subject entirely.  “It seems as though word has spread to Brind that a grave issue has taken place in Haverton.  They’ve sent word to me that they are at a loss as to what might become of the disgusting little village and how they might handle em…er… _refugees._ ”

“Refugees?” Aymes repeated, baffled.  “Surely it cannot be so drastic.”

“It seems that there has been something of a stirring beneath the surface and your friend, Will, was tearing out the boards to find the rot beneath.  It appears as though the loss of their chapel and their minister’s fall from grace has sent some of them sprawling out into the countryside.  Shelton’s inability to protect his church from a _demon_ seems to be a rather tidy little sticking point for many of them.”

“Do they truly believe you a demon?”

“Of course they do…or they did.  Until they arrived in Brind to find Alphas like me to be fairly typical.”  He chuckled through his nose.  “Who knows…perhaps they’ll fall in love with one.”

Aymes felt a flush creep from his neck cloth to his hairline.  “How does one know?  How do _you_ know?”

“How do I know what?”

“That you are in love with me.”

Gyles sat back, turning his chair to face the Omega and crossing his arms in contemplation.  “Well, I suppose I know that I love you because I cannot consider now that I could be suited for anyone else.  I want no one but you and I find you easily to be my favorite part of each and every day.  Seeing you…conversing with you…”

His cheeks were aflame.  “Touching me?”

“Of course.  Whenever you allow it, it is one of my greatest pleasures.”

Aymes swallowed, nearly breaking down right then and there and asking the Alpha to touch him—to ravage him as he ravaged him during his heat. There was perhaps something about having his life saved by his strong and capable mate.  There was something about seeing him here, competent and willing to entertain him at all hours…Aymes wanted him and not in a very proper sort of fashion.  He wanted him even despite that he was not fertile—he wanted to be held and cherished and treated as a treasure.  But instead of all of that, he merely began to unpack the basket on the edge of the desk as he murmured softly, “Then we will hope for a heat soon then, I suppose…”

Gyles leaned his elbow on the desk and put his chin in his hand, his expression warm and positively sinful.  “Yes…I suppose we will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update as an apology for missing Wednesday!


	20. Chapter 20

Despite Gyles’ relatively warm demeanor, Will remained cool to him in the weeks that passed, avoiding him when he could and deriding him in secret when Aymes was the only one who could hear.  His ire seemed mostly piqued by the very things that made an Alpha what he was—the subtle swagger to his walk and the general build of him that made him far faster and stronger than any normal Beta man that Will had known.  Aymes, surely, was at a loss for how to tell his friend that all of those aspects of Gyles which he found distasteful were certainly not in the least bit distasteful to an Omega and for good reason.

“I still don’t understand,” Will confided to him as they rode behind Whittle on their way to Brind.  “It must be crude to discuss this but I cannot fathom the anatomy of this Miss Fenwolf.  I admit that I have the most basic of knowledge of a woman’s figure but how is she meant to mate with Lady Amanda?  There must be something that I clearly do not relate to when it comes to an Alpha of the female persuasion.”

Mr. Whittle looked back at Will with a sardonic expression, “If I may, Mr. Goodfellow, you probably have far more to relate to when it comes to female Alphas than you realize.”

Will’s face gained a pinkish hue and he stared at Aymes as though for guidance as they rode on.  “I suppose you don’t have any insight into the matter?”

“None at all,” he chuckled.  “I suppose you could simply ask Miss Fenwolf.  She’s very accommodating.  Perhaps she would be inclined to give you answers.”

“That’s absurd.”

Aymes smiled and chose not to reply, tickled to his toes despite how ill at ease Will seemed to be after having been ousted quite violently from everything he’d ever known.  He healed well though he did not cope, uncomfortable in every interaction with any Alpha. This was his third occasion to accompany Aymes and Whittle to Brind and each time before this, he was practically against Whittle’s back the whole time to avoid having to interact with any of the more harsh individuals.  Omegas, it seemed, were far less intimidating for him though he kept far from those with a bondmark as he was warned by Whittle that they were more than likely protected by fierce Alpha mates.

The day was warm and sunny and the leaves on the trees were rustling around them as they rode toward the edge of the active town.  Tying their horses, they made their way to Brind’s bustling little market where storefronts competed with seasonal vendor stalls to sell their wares.  Whittle would do most of their estate business and Aymes was merely along for the exposure and the social good it would do him to be out and about.  He managed to pry Will from Whittle’s side and bring him around to different stalls, easing him in and out of conversations with the various Omegas about who recognized him from his previous visits.  One in particular was his favorite and ran the stall for his Alpha wife’s butcher shop in the next town over.

“Good morning, Aymes.  This is your friend Will?”  Thomas wiped his hands before putting one out to shake Will’s, his friendly scent inviting and sugary.  He was a sturdy, short Omega with more handsome than pretty features, his eyes often glittering with an unending well of good humor.

Intimidated by the prominent bondmark on Thomas’s throat, Will tentatively offered his own hand.  “Glad to meet you…”

“I’m Thomas Ulrich.  I’ve heard much about you in the past few weeks—seems like you’ve made quite the stir of it in Haverton. Bizarre place.  I can’t imagine having that sort of lot around me all the time.  O'course I suppose I would have gone the way of Aymes!” He gave a little chuckle and put his hands on his hips.  Despite his height, short even for an Omega, he puffed out his chest proudly. “You know I’ve even convinced Alayah, my mate, to house a few of those lost Betas.  I think they’re beginnin’ to warm up to her too!”

Aymes felt a twinge of shock run through him.  He’d wondered what in the world would happen to those who had decided to leave Haverton after the events had transpired but for certain he hadn’t expected them to be absorbed so quickly into the neighboring communities.  He peered at Will, curious as to his reaction.  When his friend said nothing, still awkwardly staring at Thomas’s bondmark, he spoke.

“How did they feel about your Alpha at first?”

“I think she scared the wits out of ‘em!” he laughed, his toothy smile huge.  “They seem to like her well enough now, though I can’t imagine they’ll ever get used to the smell of her.  She’s got enough, she’s thinkin’ about settin’ 'em off on their own with some capital. They’ve got a few good skills—fine woodworkers they are.”

Will blurted out, his eyes wide, “The Fornhasters?!”

“Yah, that’s them,” Thomas smiled, scratching the side of his head.  “Know them well?”

“Rats skittish enough to leave the ship as its sinking but not brave enough to speak out against my hanging,” Will grumbled.  “I suppose that will be plenty of Betas looking to get out—those who never once told Shelton what they thought about his caning me.  The sword of God put the fear of him into them, I guess!”

Thomas gave Aymes and Will a commiserating expression. “Unfortunately, it seems a priority for most to save their own sorry skins.  Anyhow, ye’ve been rescued and healed up nice, thanks to Falborn and of course little Aymes here.”  He touched Aymes’ elbow, a gesture common among Omegas.

“Hardly little compared to you,” Aymes joked.

“Not to be so little anymore either, you’re going to be waddlin’ come spring, no doubt.”  He laughed but quit when he saw Aymes’ puzzled expression.  “Oh!  Hah!  I always seem to be the one who knows first.  You’ll want to share the good news with your Alpha. You’re _expecting_.”  He gave Aymes a little wink and a proud grin.

“Expecting…” Aymes parroted in a toneless voice, his confusion eroding as the meaning of the Omega’s words washed over him.  “Oh…”

“I thought you’d be more excited about it but I suppose it might be a shock to you…your background and all.  No worries, Aymes. I’ve got three of my own and I can certainly answer any of your questions should you have 'em.”  He leaned forward and lowered his voice.  “Sometimes there are things them Alphas don’t want to tell you.  Think it might offend your sensibilities.  Bah!”

Will drew up, staring between the two of them as though he’d just been slapped.  “ _Expecting?_ You can’t mean to say…”

“Oh I do mean to say,” Thomas replied with his smile firmly in place.  “Falborn will be quite pleased indeed, I expect.”

 _Or not so pleased,_ Aymes thought, his emotions teetering between fear and sorrow.  In the past few weeks he had been increasingly disgruntled, feeling more and more of his attraction toward his Alpha.  It was common, was it not, to be decidedly attached to the man who had taken one’s purity?  He could not say, though he had not come close enough to the man to tempt himself with that warm and giving embrace.  Autumn was rolling toward them steadily and with the crisp coolness of the nights, he thought he might find relief from the cold with his heat and the satisfaction of his husband’s touch to quell it—but that was not to be.  He was to find himself alone and pregnant…having made this vow of celibacy…of loneliness…

Realizing that his scent was betraying his inner thoughts, he hastily excused himself from Thomas and hurried himself back to Mr. Whittle who was securing his purchases to the saddlebags of the horses.

“Aymes?  What’s this now?” he asked, taking him into a crumpled embrace.  “What’s got you upset?”

Will’s voice was concerned and defensive.  “It was nothing I said, sir, I promise.  We’ve just had some news and…”

“Some news?” Whittle asked, his mild Beta scent spiking with what Aymes could now identify as concern.

“I’m…I’m…” Aymes tried, burying his face against Whittle’s clothes.

Will was near and whispering now.  “ _He’s with child, sir.  So says one of these Omegas._ ”

“Ah.  I see.  Yes, that could cause some tears.  Completely understandable.  Let us get you on your horse little one, and we’ll go home and get you a nice bowl of stew for luncheon.  Then you can have a chat with Master Falborn.”

He didn’t want to have a chat with Gyles.  He had already made his deal with the man and to go back on it now—what sort of man would he be to do that?  Keeping his lustful thoughts at bay was going to be far more difficult now that he knew what was possible.  Now that he had felt his body speared by a powerful Alpha and the pleasure that came from the act of copulation.  No wonder fornication was so powerful a sin, he thought as he allowed for Whittle to help him into his saddle. Once it was done there was something to lament and to thirst for simultaneously…he wanted it.  He wanted those big hands on his body and the pinch of nervous shame that he felt when Gyles looked upon his nakedness.  He wanted that feeling of hunger that begged him to open his legs around an Alpha’s hips.  He rode ahead of his two companions, eager to put distance between himself and the two Betas who could not possibly understand his surging and swirling emotions.  He could hear them behind him, murmuring their conversation that was no doubt about him and his reaction to the news.  They couldn’t possibly understand that his disappointment welled not from fear but from this ever-growing urge to sin.

He prompted his horse into a hearty trot and turned up the drive, stopping not at the house but continuing on to the chapel where he dismounted quickly and sought Reverend Byrd on the matter at hand. He found him in the chapel office, likely scribbling down notes for his next sermon.

“Hello, Aymes, you smell distraught.”  He turned his chair around from the desk which faced the wall and motioned to the other small wooden chair in the room, giving the boy a small smile.  “Why don’t you sit and tell me what’s the matter.”

“I’m _with child!_ ” he wailed, nearly collapsing into the opposite chair, fat tears rolling down his cheeks while a lump formed in his throat.

“And this has caused issue, I see.”  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, handing it to the sniffling Omega. “You know, there are all sorts of moods that can be caused by such a state and this is most definitely one of them.  No need to be ashamed of it.”

“It is not that!”

“It is not?”

He got up suddenly and pulled the door to the small office shut, sitting back down with a huff.  “I cannot do it anymore.”

Alarm flickered through the reverend’s features.

“I cannot lie to myself!  I want him!   _Intimately!_  Help me, Reverend Byrd.  How do I stop this once I’ve begun?  I cannot trust myself with him.  I feel like such a wanton.  I feel like a disgrace.  I feel like I’ve been tempted by the devil and I gave in and now I’m cursed to feel these sinful things forever!”  He covered his face with the handkerchief, soaking it in his tears as he sobbed.  “Not only that,” he said, muffled, “but with Will here, I feel the strains of my old life so much more prominently.  It is as if the eyes of Haverton are upon me and he hates Gyles so.  My only friend and he hates my…my _mate._ ”

Byrd sighed through his nose.  “Little one, I suppose it would not help you for me to insist that you cease your sniffling.  After all, this is not a difficult issue to remedy in the slightest.”

“W-What can you mean?  I feel as though I have fallen from—”

“Oh do not.  You’re merely feeling the effects of having become with child.  Gracious, I never thought that I should be the one to tell an Omega this…it is unseemly for me to know more about your own body than you do yourself.  But when an Omega is expecting, it is very common for them to become…excited.  That is…aroused.  What you’re feeling is completely normal.  Everything you’ve felt has been completely normal, little Aymes.”  He reached out, touching Aymes’ hand.  “You are an _Omega_ and you have a natural inclination toward intimacy with your mate.  It struck me as odd when you told me that would promise not to touch you and so far he has made good on his promise, has he not?”

“Well…yes.”

“Then forgive yourself for having made the damned ultimatum in the first place and let him have you now.  It will certainly take care of all of this storming into my office, won’t it?  Once you shed all of this shame nonsense and begin following your instincts, you’ll find yourself feeling much better.  Far less tears, I promise you.  As for your friend, Will, he will simply have to rise above it.  After all, your mate is your first priority, Aymes.  Should you not be able to please both, Master Falborn ranks well above him.”

Aymes leaned back in his seat and lowered the handkerchief to stare at the man.  Was it really so simple?  Was everything so simple all the times?  Give in to sin and everything would wash away?  Was that not the easy way out?  Though how wrong he had been about so many things…surely he could trust Byrd on this point now, couldn’t he? “You…you want me to…fornicate?”

“I want you to make love.  You do feel fondness for him.  I know you do.”

“Well…yes.”

“Then use that fondness you have and let it bloom.  You cannot do that with a door between you all the time.”

He sat with Byrd for a few minutes more, sniffling and finally nodding.  Yes.  It made sense, he supposed.  If it was something that Byrd thought was worth doing then surely he would have to agree. After all, his mate was a good man and had rescued him from a number of horrors.  He could, at the very least, give in to his temptations and bring them both to into the maelstrom of sinful pleasures.  It would not be so difficult, he thought, all he had to do was make certain that he was close to the man and this urge would surely take hold and guide him.

After a spell, Aymes walked to the house and found a warm bowl of stew waiting for him which his consumed readily.  With a full belly and a full mind, he sought out his mate, finding him in his study. Aymes kept himself at the door, holding the frame tightly with his uncertainty.

Gyles’ gaze came to him and he smiled, warm and inviting.  Good lord, the man could disarm him so quickly.  It seemed as though he could become more and more handsome by the day, his one dead eye merely creating an attractive foil for the rest of his stunning Alpha beauty.

“Gyles…” he murmured, his heart hammering in his chest.

“Yes, little one?  Did your outing go well?”

“I…well…yes.”

“Good.  Was there something you wished to ask me?”  His Alpha scent was smokey with his curiosity.

“Y-yes, as a matter of fact.”

The Alpha waited while Aymes floundered.

“That is, I…I…”  He caught himself staring at his mate, serene and large and without equal in the whole of the world.  “I thought perhaps that I would…come to bed with you tonight…”

His scent lightened and a smile spread across his handsome face. “Truly?  You believe you will sleep well in my bed?  Or do you mean for me to come to yours?”

“Y-Yours will do…”

“I suppose I will have to ask if this migration to my bed means that you will consider a stay upon our agreement?”

“Y-you may touch me, Alpha…if that is what you wish.”

Gyles gave a great sigh of relief and leaned back in his seat, regarding Aymes with a smoldering look that had him near to melting into his shoes.  “That is most certainly what I wish, little Omega. Then I will see you tonight…and I will make certain that you are well-tended…for whatever it is that you wish of me.”

“Very well,” he squeaked, flitting himself into the hallway then, his blood thrumming in his veins.   _Good lord he is handsome! How will I ever survive!?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once we're done with this one, we're doing another western. Because westerns rock.


	21. Chapter 21

He was in his nightclothes and in Gyles’ bed long before the Alpha came to him, his huge presence striking in the room even as Aymes did not turn to look at him in the doorway.  His trenchant lust was stubborn and unforgiving despite every misgiving he had about feeling it.  He wanted to open his legs around Gyles’ hips and take him as he had during his heat.  He wanted to feel the power behind every brush and breath against his sensitive skin.  Deep wells of shame were pouring out their contents from the back of his mind, filling his heart with an ache he couldn’t contain nor comprehend. It was obvious from his scent, he knew.

“Little Aymes,” came that gentle growl.  “If you would rather I left…”

“No…” he squeaked from the bed, still unable to turn around and look at him.  “Please.”

The Alpha approached then, and Aymes could feel his presence as he moved toward the bed.  “Should you like me in my night clothes then, Omega?”

He bit his bottom lip.  “N-no.”

The gentle sounds of Gyles’ clothing while he disrobed sent huge shivers of apprehension through Aymes’ body and his whole being seemed to buzz with a strange and yet delicious tension.  He longed to be touched.  He longed to feel big hands on his hips and a warm mouth upon his mostly-healed bondmark.  It was, he thought, completely irrational but he couldn’t help himself.  If this was to be his life after having come down with the fever—if he was to truly understand how an Omega and an Alpha live together…Byrd was right, he couldn’t always put a door between them.

Gyles climbed into the bed, coming under the covers close enough so that Aymes could feel his warmth but not close enough to touch him. “I won’t touch you if you cannot look at me.”

Speechless, the Omega very slowly turned to his back, finding his shoulder mere inches from the burning heat of his mate.  He peered over at Gyles, taking in his hard Alpha features through the darkness and the slightest glow of the coals in the hearth.

The first touch was that of his warm hand on Aymes’ neck, his fingers curved to the back of his head and his thumb swooping over the shell of his ear.  “You are so beautiful, little one.  You disarm me.  All the power I have ever held crumbles at your feet. Truly, truly will you let me touch you?”

“Yes…”

“Any manner I wish?”

He felt his face warm.  “As long as it is kind.”

“There is no other sort of touch.  Not for you, my little one. Stop me if you will, any time.  For any reason.  But I would seek only to have you scream my name with your passions.”  With that, he pulled the covers over his head and, in a puzzling move, began to pull up Aymes’ night clothes from beneath the quilts, the slide of the hem followed quickly by his searching, loving lips.  Aymes gasped and sighed as Gyles nipped at his thighs, his heart about ready to burst when he felt his drawers removed.  The Alpha was looking at him.  It was only bearable because the man was beneath the covers as he did so—should Aymes have had to watch him examine his body without the fog of a heat to help him shed his shame…well, he would have been thoroughly mortified.

“Ahn!” he cried as he felt the first touch of his mate upon the already-stiffened piece of him that could do naught but seek this sinful pleasure.  He wanted this.  He wanted so badly to feel everything that was possible.  A warm, wet sheath came around him and he jerked suddenly with a shriek of surprise.  Gyles lifted his head, pulling back the covers to look at him with a tiny bit of alarm in his features.

“Aymes?”

“W-What are you doing?!”

“Giving you pleasure.”

He could see his own erect member shining with moisture, laying on his belly as if saddened at the interruption.  He could feel himself gaining a wildness along with the heavy beating of his heart. “How…”

“With my mouth, little one.  I swear to you, it is nothing to me. Only a gift I give to you and one I enjoy very much.”

“It cannot be right…”

“Let yourself have this, little Aymes.  Let yourself feel how much I love you.”  After a pause in which they kept each others’ gaze, the Alpha slowly lifted Aymes’ little Omega length and, without breaking eye contact, lapped the bottom of it with the flat of his tongue.  The sensation of it sent butterflies whirling and fluttering through Aymes’ body.  Merely watching how his mate interacted with the most secret part of him so intimately had him beside himself with his lust.  Finally, the warm sheath of his mouth returned and Aymes was powerless but to watch, his mouth drawing open to emit soft groans of his pleasure.  He was so eager for this and yet he could not even define what it was—there was so much he didn’t know.

Tension built in his belly and it seemed that he could only become more and more fascinated by the fire that consumed him, filling the room and lapping at the walls.  Gyles’ lips and tongue over his sensitive organ filled him with an insatiable wanton passion.  He was gripping his mate’s hair, not pressing or pulling but simply gripping as he had no other recourse in his hideous state.  “Ahn! Ahhh! P-Please, Gyles!”  It was as though he had come upon the crest of a massive ocean wave and just at the peak, when he had lost all his breath, he felt the shake and shudder of his climax.  It washed over him in a series of undulating motions as though bursts of wind from a swell.  “Oh… _ohhhhh…._ ”

His mate released him from his mouth and moved to kiss and nip at his hip and then his belly, licking at him as if to silently worship him with his love.  “ _Mmmm,_ ” was his deep Alpha sound, possessive in its intent. The vibration of it seemed to calm the waves of passion that had devoured him.  Gyles moved up his body, pressing him down into the mattress with a controlled weight that was comfortable and secure.  “ _Will you have me, little one?_ ”

Aymes, recovering from his reeling, panted a bit while staring up into his husband’s eye.  He was no longer as unsure as he had been before, his body beginning to crave affection in any form.  Though he could not imagine himself being able to accommodate Gyles’ long, thick girth, he knew he could.  Heat or not, he could gorge himself on this damningly handsome man and he resolved then to feel no regret of it.  He was fully in control—he would make certain that there was nothing to be felt but a satisfaction in this.  He wanted it.  He wanted it.  He _wanted_ it.

“Yes.  Yes, Alpha.   _I want you_.”  He felt wanted himself, he felt desirable.  Following his instinct, he lifted his chin to present his throat and moaned when Gyles kissed his bondmark, the sensitive healing flesh sparking beneath the contact and sending tendrils of lust creeping back into his lower belly.  He needed more. This vulnerability and desire mixed to flood him with emotions difficult to ignore.

Nude and flushed, Aymes found himself aching with need, shifting to cradle his mate between his thighs just as he had envisioned himself in his naughty thoughts late and in the dark.  Whatever devil was inside him must have been purring with glee as he squeezed at Gyles’ body with those thighs, urging him to move closer and closer to the point at which they would be one.

“Impatient, are you?” Gyles cooed, pressing his lips down over the Omega’s mouth to stifle any retort that might have been forthcoming.  The musty taste of him was sweetened by a hint of sherry and Aymes’ groin sang at the feel of his tongue brushing past his lips.  When the contact was broken, the erotic tension remained and Gyles gave a low and alluring chuckle.  “You are my little minx, aren’t you?  Should you like me to press inside you, my love? Should you like me to open you and have you as though you were in heat?”

“ _Yes…yes…_ ”

“Then you shall have what you wish.”  He leaned over to the table at his bedside and procured a small glass vial which held within it an amount of lubrication which he utilized liberally.  It was cold at first and Aymes shied from it until he felt Gyles’ fingers touching him in a most familiar sort of fashion.  One finger sank into his body and he squealed a bit, unused to the intrusion. “Mmm, one day I’ll find you to have the courage to do this to yourself…”

“No…” he gasped, closing his eyes and focusing hard on the pressure his large finger had made inside him.

“Yes…and perhaps I will watch.”

He gasped again, this time far more audibly.

“Oh yes, little one.  I would simply adore watching you pleasure yourself…”

“That is…that is a _sin,_ Alpha.”

His mouth was next to Aymes’ temple, his breath hot over his ear. “One day I will tempt you enough to be my little demon.”  Another of his fingers slid inside and curved to push against the wall of him—to find his weak point.

A sparkle of pleasure distracted him, shining and careening through him as though a shooting star in the midst of a black night. “ _Alpha…_ ”

“Yes, my love.  I know.  You weaken me so.”  He worked a third large finger into the Omega’s body and teased him, moving them in and out of him at a steady, normal pace.  “I should ask…what has brought on this change of heart?  Memories of our nights together?” He was grinning a very male and very Alpha grin that was only a tad bit too smug for Aymes’ liking.

“Mmm…” Aymes moaned, seeking to distract the Alpha with a kiss, unwilling to face the specter of a pregnancy when he was already handling his crisis of lust.  The meeting of their lips was powerful and their kiss smoldering.  Gyles must have taken the hint that he wished not to talk about it as he removed his fingers and worked to press the slicked head of his sex against Aymes’ opening.

“If it hurts at all,” he mumbled against Aymes’ lips, “you must tell me and I will stop.”

He wasn’t going to want the Alpha to stop.  He wanted to be opened and loved like he was during his heat.  He wanted to be cherished and worshiped.  He wanted this warm Alpha body to hold him as though he were a fragile porcelain idol and he wanted so much to be given all of this freely—without rules.  Without expectations.  Without looking for absolution.  He wanted to give Gyles _everything_. “Alpha…I need you.”  He needn’t say more.  He felt his body take the breach and he groaned in the middle of his sigh, letting his eyes close in the bliss of only feeling.

Gyles was slow, making certain that there was enough lubrication for a steady push and draw before he gradually pulled Aymes back until he was fully speared upon the Alpha’s long, thick member.  Gyles held his legs by the backs of his knees, keeping them spread apart and up for better control, the curve of his heels comfortably resting upon the man’s shoulders.  “Is this alright, little one?”

“ _Yes.  Please Gyles…_ ”

“Of course.”  His smile was warm and his scent was filled with the spice of his arousal, fanning the flames of Aymes’ potent sin. Each movement he made, each undulation of his hips, was as a billow to the fire.  He thrust forward and drew back in a pattern of animal instinct.  At first he drew and filled deep but soon found from Aymes’ keening where he was best fit to be and his thrusts became shallower, focusing on the spot that his lover was most apt to feel the delicious burden of his sex.  When he was in rhythm, his hand moved to grasp Aymes’ neglected length, teasing him with steady stroking fingers until he was panting between his moaning cries, begging for something he could not even begin to comprehend—this all must have a purpose.  The process, the climax…everything. Should it not be perfect in its design if created by God?  Why design it and then decry it?

He threw everything aside.  All of his misgivings would do him no good in getting what he wanted, which was this until he could not take it anymore.  Until soreness of body prevented it, he wanted to feel everything and give everything and above all else he wanted to know that everything was going to be alright.

He felt the coil in his body winding and he reached up for his lover, feeling the stretch in the backs of his thighs as Gyles leaned down over him, folding his body together so that Aymes could touch his face and the sides of his head.  He kissed each of Aymes’ palms and then nipped at his thumb playfully.

“My Omega,” he breathed, sweat trickling from his hairline and down to the angle of his jaw.  “My Omega…my Omega.”

Aymes squeezed his eyes shut tight, his mouth opening in a stuttering shriek as the tension suddenly snapped within him and he came hard, his body arching and the warmth of his spend splashing over his chest and stomach.  The after-shocks thrilled him, his toes curling rhythmically as Gyles thrust a few more times to take his pleasure, the hot seed of him spilling into Aymes as evidence of their mutual sin.

“ _Alpha…Alpha…_ ”

“Yes.  I’m here,” he breathed heavily, panting a bit before he pulled out and rolled the both of them on their sides to recover. “Lord, I really am here.”

“I…There is something…”

“Yes, little Aymes?”  His scent sparkled in interest like shining droplets of dew upon spiderwebs at dawn.  “I cannot begin to tell you how happy you have made me to come to me like you have. That is not to say that you cannot replace your deal you have made with me…I will not touch you if you do not wish it…”

“ _Shhhh…_ ”

His Alpha chuckled a bit and closed his lips together tightly, his eyes shining in the dim light of the silver moon that had risen over the horizon.

Aymes breathed, relaxing into the heat of his lover and the bliss that came just after his climax.  He waited for a few moments, reveling in the calmness of the moment and in his lover’s smokey Alpha musk.  Then, with a small groan of satisfaction, he murmured softly, “ _I think…we’ll have a pup, you and I._ ”

Gyles jostled him when he jerked in surprise, his eye focusing sharply on Aymes’ sleepy visage.  “What?”

“…a…a pup.  That is what…Thomas said.  In Brind when we went…”

A slow smile spread over Gyles’ face lighting him up as though the sun were in his very soul.  “A pup?  Aymes…I…”

“Yes,” he grinned, tired.  “I know.  You cannot begin to tell me…”

“Oh you little tease,” the Alpha told him, tickling him until Aymes swatted him away.  “You only know me too well!  My mate should, I suppose, know me so well by now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep. :D Next Chapter is the last Chapter. <3 I really enjoyed this story.


	22. Chapter 22

It was a nippy autumn morning and the leaves were changing from their vibrant greens to their brilliant oranges and yellows and reds. The rain from the morning had produced the musky scent of petrichor in the air and the grass shimmered with thousands of tiny raindrops. Puddles filled the dips of the gravel and dirt drive and the whole of the sky was a rumbling darkened gray that marked the full insistence of autumn.

Aymes stood upon the wet stone steps watching Will lifting his trunk into the back of the carriage.  When the man approached him in his final goodbye, he felt a strange detachment in his soul.  After all, it had been several weeks and over that time Will had warmed considerably to Gyles though not completely.  It seemed that most of his affections had been distracted by Miss Fenwolf and Lady Amanda, the former of which had nonchalantly offered for him to come to England with the both of them to see more of the world than this small corner of New England.  Will had been uneasy about the suggestion at the first but as was typical of his nature, it seemed that the arrangement would suit.  After all, he was far warmer toward Miss Fenwolf and the ladies did have their particular way of wearing a man down to get what they wanted.  Ever since the involvement of the regale feminine Alpha, Lady Amanda had become far more agreeable.

Aymes sighed.  “Are you certain?  You will always have a home with us, Will.”

“I am certain.  I know you have found what you need here but I am another man entirely.  I want to know what it is about this world that made Haverton believe it to be as evil as they said.  I understand that much of it is mere politics but in truth, I feel very much as though a part of my knowledge has been stolen from me.  I need to know more.  I need to see how many different people there are in this world and I need to know all the things that have been hidden from me.  It’s a matter of grave importance to me, you understand.”

“I understand,” he nodded, reaching to touch his friend’s face. “You will come back?  To see your nephew.”

He smiled.  “Am I more brother to you than your own siblings?”

“Of course you are.”

“And what if you were to have a niece?”

“Then you will spoil her.”

Will scoffed.  “I will bring them as many gifts as I can fit in my luggage.  Miss Fenwolf has shared stories of the Orient.  Perhaps I will bring you whatever I can find there…trinkets and the like. She has told me that there are such things as I have never even heard of there.”

“I should not doubt it.”

Will glanced back at the carriage that was still being packed.  “She told me that there are people who look different all across the world.  That they will see me and I will be the rare one.  That seems so difficult to imagine doesn’t it?”

“It does.”

Will peered at him with a solemn little smile.  “You know, Aymes…I love you.  Should it have been possible in our lives and our circumstance, I would have happily married you.”

Aymes felt his cheeks warm.  “Will…”

“Don’t chide me.  I told you that you were a man without vice, I never said a thing about myself.”

He let his friend have an embarrassed smile.  “I suppose, then, that you will have to find yourself an Omega and love him with your whole heart.”

“Now that I know it possible, I suppose I will.”  He nipped Aymes’ chin with his thumb and forefinger.  “Now, I’ll be off then and you will be careful with that pup in your belly.  I will consider it very grave indeed should I come back to find that you’ve not taken proper care.”

“And when you become a worldly man, you will not forget me?”

“I would rather die.”

Aymes embraced him tightly before he let him go and for the first time in months that evening, the house was terribly quiet.  It was only he and Gyles after the guests had gone and there was no telling when there would be more guests appearing to keep his mind occupied. Not that there was no occupation for him.  He had taken to running the household as Whittle introduced him to it and as he came to understand, he was not the typical sort of Omega to run a household though he did try his best.

“You know,” Whittle told him after supper one evening, “the servants might have an easier time of it and be more comfortable should you choose to wear your shoes more often.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Whittle, but there is something about them that offends me.”

“You’re going to have a very strange pregnancy, Mr. Falborn.”

Aymes took to washing the dishes as he was wont to do and nodded seriously.  “Yes, I suppose so.  I can’t seem to keep my shoes on and there are a few other odd things I’ve noticed.  But I suppose if I’ve let myself have one thing, I should let myself have all the others.  There’s no point in self-restraint when it comes to these urges, is there?”

“I suspect you’re talking about intimacy,” Whittle said dryly, raising his brow.

Aymes flushed.  “Not entirely.”

“Then you mean that we’ve been eating pickled herring for weeks now?”

“Oh dear…well…”

“It’s common, Mr. Falborn, to have cravings for certain odd nourishment.  Closeness and intimacy are well within the same category.  Now that you’ve no guests to disturb, I encourage a more adventurous approach.”

“What can you mean?”

Whittle motioned in a vague and wide gesture.  “Beyond the bedchamber is what I mean.  The whole house is yours.  Why not seduce him in a parlor?  I do beg you to keep your intimacies out of the food pantry but it _is_ your house so my begging doesn’t have to stop you.”

It was an interesting thought and he would certainly consider it. After he had come to Gyles and rescinded his conditions, he had spent every night in his husband’s bed.  They did not come together in an embrace every night, of course, there were some nights in which they had to rest or were simply too sore from previous romps, but Aymes had become much more acquainted with his body and the pleasures that he was capable of feeling.  He had never thought himself such a wanton creature but when it was his husband, he could not help but give himself over to the sinful emotions and thoughtless actions that could carry him to climax—a state that he was certain might have been a glimpse into something deeply incomprehensible.

As often as he had been told that it was sinful and terrible, he sought it and truly wanted to hold that connection with Gyles.  That they could make each other feel in such a way and experience the same potent satisfaction—it was perfection, he thought.  To be able to expand from the expectation of the bed chamber and consider the spontaneity factor of seduction in every room…well it was nothing short of blush-worthy.  That he could someday turn the corner of a hallway and be crushed against the wall by his lover and his husband, kissing and flushed where any of the servants might turn that same corner?

“Hmm, I’m glad the idea has some merit for you,” Whittle said, not without a bit of smugness in his tone.

Upon realizing that his scent had altered, Aymes flashed the Beta a somewhat sour look before he put away the dishes he’d washed and stalked off to find his husband.  Gyles, of course, was in his favorite parlor and his scent was warm and content as he put down his book.

“Good evening, Aymes, finished with the work I keep insisting that you do not have to do?”

“You know I like to feel useful.”

The Alpha smiled.  “Yes, I know.  If it were to help, I should tell you that you are always useful, no matter what you do.  Would you like me to read to you?”

“I thought rather,” he began, pausing to shut the door tightly behind him, “that I might be somewhat _naughty_ this evening. Seeing as I have come so far in being somewhat of a heretic, I’ve allowed myself to be convinced of some rather questionable deeds that I shall willingly commit.”

Curiosity lifted Gyles’ brows.  “Questionable deeds?”  He sat up, seemingly rapt.

“Do not get up, Alpha.  This will be far easier should you remain sitting.”  With extreme prejudice, Aymes began slowly taking off his clothes, aware that Gyles was still staring questioningly at him. He almost wanted to tell him to stop staring but this _was_ supposed to be for him…sort of.  Normally their interactions were either in dim lighting or in none at all though there had been some mornings where Aymes had closed his eyes to keep from seeing Gyles looking at him but here and now, there seemed to be no avoiding it. He held his breath as he rendered himself completely nude, taking care not to look at his husband’s face as he must have been looking at his hard little length where it jutted up from between his thighs. When he was completely undressed, he approached slowly and gently parted the Alpha’s knees, coming between them.

Gyles, taking the hint, kept his hands upon the armrests of the chair, his fingers digging into the ivory inlaid hardwood.  He kept himself still and quiet as Aymes unfastened his belt and unbuttoned his trousers, handling him with care to reveal him to the warmth of the parlor air.

“ _Aymes…_ ” Gyles murmured, his voice loving and soft.

The Omega spared a glance upward before he sank to his knees between Gyles’ parted legs.  He’d never done this before though he’d allowed Gyles to do it many times to him and so what he worked with was merely basic knowledge…after all, the man was _much_ larger than he was.

“ _Oh, Aymes…_ ” the Alpha groaned at the first touch of his tongue to his swollen member.  “Take care not to nick me with your teeth, my love…”

He was tentative at first, the taste of him foreign and earthy and very male.  He took heart in the sighs and gentle growling groans that came from Gyles’ throat and was able then to take the head of it into the heat of his mouth, unsure of how he was to go about the act itself.  He tried his best to emulate what his husband did for him though it seemed that all he was able to accomplish was making a fine bit of a mess with his own saliva.

Disheartened, he peered upwards to find the Alpha gazing at him, his eye glittering with pride and lust and his grin very pleased indeed.

“Aymes, you are a treasure in every way.  I’ll never understand how lucky I am to have you.  With practice, you’ll no doubt become so good at this that I’ll be fair begging you for it.  But for now should you like to give your poor jaw a rest and come sit upon my lap?”

He licked his lips and nodded, his cheeks aflame.  Gyles swooped forward and lifted him, bringing him to straddle and settling him down so that their hard lengths were pressed together and Aymes nearly looked away for the sight was far too delicious to be seen. He was so filled with lust, he felt like he could burst.

“Mmm, look at yourself, Aymes.  You’re so perfectly formed, it would be a shame not to appreciate the art that God has put upon this Earth for us to enjoy.  Is not your body finely crafted?  Should it not be admired?”

He could not find an answer within himself and so he merely leaned forward and brashly stole a kiss from his Alpha, melting into the subsequent embrace and keening into his mouth when the position of their bodies produced enough friction to stimulate his nerves. “ _Ahn…uhhhh…_ ”  He felt Gyles brush his fingertips against his puckered entrance and he tore his lips away to bury his nose into the familiar warm throat at his disposal.

“Mmm, did you know you were becoming wet back here?  What a naughty little Omega…”

It was a recent development of his _condition_ and he wasn’t certain if he was glad for it or not but it was certainly… _convenient_ at times.  Changes in his body were not limited to the slight rounding out of his abdomen and his cravings, this near-constant production of his body’s lubricating formula was one of the most vexing.

“I’m not naughty,” he mumbled against Gyles’ throat, unsure if it was true.

“Oh no?”  Gyles dipped a finger into him, the slide easy. They’d been making love so often now that this gesture was merely a tease rather than a requirement.  “Perhaps I should make you into my naughty little one then.  How would you like to take me inside you?”

“You know how I would like it,” he huffed, rearing until he could feel him close at his entrance.

“Yes, my naughty Omega would love to be—mmf!”  

Aymes kept his hand over Gyles’ mouth even as he was sinking down over his stiff manhood, reveling in every inch that rose inside him until he was fully impaled.  He lifted himself rhythmically and let his weight carry him down in a pattern that was slow and sensual, feeling his husband’s wide grin beneath his hand.  He frowned.  “You are a wicked man, Alpha.”

Gyles took Aymes’ wrist and removed his hand.  “And you are my wicked lover.  A little nymph, if I do say so.  Imagine that you, tidy and pure little Aymes Morehill would find himself here with his husband, a seductive little beast of lust.”

“Must I shush you every time we are…”

“Mmm.”  The Alpha stared at him, grinning still.  “Why don’t you say it, little Aymes?  What are we doing?”

He passed Gyles an uncomfortable glance even as he continued to move over his rigid form.  “C-Copulating.”

His booming laugh jostled him and he gripped at Aymes’ thighs with his warm hands.  “What a forthright Omega you are…have you not fallen for me yet?”

He felt his cheeks burn again.  “I…I have…”

“Then what, really, are we doing?”

“Mmm…”  He looked down at his own cock, bouncing with his efforts.  “Mmmm…making love.”

“I agree,” he purred.  “Would you like to come, Aymes?”

“Y-yes.”

Gripping his hips in those big hands, Gyles began to quicken his pace, supporting him and moving him with greater enthusiasm until he was bouncing swiftly up and down with scarce room to breathe or think.  The Alpha drove upwards though with what leverage, Aymes wasn’t certain though he didn’t much care when there were sparks blooming behind his eyelids and a coil of tension in his stomach that would soon snap.

When it did, he cried out, tossing back his head as his body convulsed with his climax.  He could feel Gyles’ warm spend inside him and he collapsed, boneless, in his lover’s arms.  For several moments he was beyond speech and he merely breathed, taking care to keep his Alpha inside him for as long as he could.  Against his ear was the puff of his mate’s words.

“ _Lord, I am so in love with this Omega…my little Aymes._ ”

He pulled himself together and lifted his body with the threadbare remnants of his strength and pressed his lips against his Alpha’s, giving him a series of soft, shattering kisses that warmed his blood and filled him again with a simmering need.  Against his lips, he sighed.  “ _And I, Lord, am in love with this Alpha…_ ”

Gyles surged forward and claimed him in a far more hungry set of kisses this time, his tongue pleaded with him and plundering his mouth until they were both panting and hard again.  With heavy breaths, the Alpha spoke once more.  “ _God, I have waited so long for love, I have traveled so far…and here I have found it lingering just outside my door._ ”

“ _Alpha,_ ” Aymes murmured, between his next kisses, _“Alpha…Alpha…my Alpha…_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what you call this? _Growth_.
> 
> Thank you everyone for coming along on this adventure. Thank you for liking Aymes and Gyles and for your wonderful comments and thoughts along the way. Don't forget to comment on this last chapter if you feel so moved to do so. I do my best to get to everyone's comments and respond to them. If it takes me a while, it's just because life is hard sometimes. Thank you again and I'll see you Friday with the next chapter of Apostate and next week Wednesday with the first chapter of a new _Western_. :]
> 
> If you're looking for more ways to interact with my stories and perhaps even me, I invite you to join my **[Discord Server](https://discord.gg/7U7P4z7)**. You can find not only just me but also others who have read my stuff and would love to chat about it. :D


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